


The Happiest Fuckin’ Place on Earth (tm)

by Roxy_palace



Series: Disney Verse [1]
Category: Bandom, Disney - All Media Types
Genre: Alternative Universe - Theme Park, Disney, First Kiss, Fluff, Happy Ending, M/M, Multi, Oral Sex, Romance, Shenanigans, blue collar, theme park
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-31
Updated: 2011-08-31
Packaged: 2017-11-04 21:51:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/398570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roxy_palace/pseuds/Roxy_palace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Only two kinds of people worked at Disneyland Park, Anaheim, CA: Frank Iero, and everyone else. What happens when our cynical, <a href="http://i645.photobucket.com/albums/uu174/Roxy_Palace/my-chemical-romance-and-disneyland-gallery.jpg">maintenance-man-with-a-grudge</a> meets new Disney employee, Gerard Way, a <a href="http://i645.photobucket.com/albums/uu174/Roxy_Palace/Gerard-way-my-chemical-romance-19400197-467-700.jpg">starry-eyed Mouse fanatic</a>? Find out when you enter The Happiest Fuckin’ Place on Earth. Have a magical day!</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Happiest Fuckin’ Place on Earth (tm)

_"To all who come to this happy place – welcome…”  
-Walter E. Disney  
July 17th, 1955_

 

As soon as Frank saw him he knew it was going to be one of those Mondays.

The rangy looking red-head strolled up Main Street USA with _that_ expression on his face - as if the clap board and stucco fantasy really was the main street of his home town, as if wishes really did come true - holding his “Welcome to the Happiest Place On Earth TM folder out in front of him like a divining rod.

He was clearly lost. But Frank just shrugged and turned back to the pile of repair essentials he was trying to fit on his Donald Duck golf cart. The guy would be fine. Besides, Uncle Walt didn’t pay him enough to play Nana to a Tinkerbell.

Frank couldn’t help glancing back at the guy though – all pale and intense looking with a shock of messy red hair above glittery eyes and smooth, wide cheek bones. _Haunted Mansion cast_ , decided Frank with a sneer. They liked to pick the freaky looking ones.

Frank pushed a box of candy cane striped light bulbs into a gap above Donald’s curly tail. Didn’t really matter where the guy worked. Imagineers, cast, maintenance, security and catering, it was all the same to Frank.

Only two kinds of people worked at Disneyland Park, Anaheim, CA: Frank Iero and everyone else.

To be fair, there was Frank and Bob, and everyone else.

Frank sighed and slid a pair of needle nosed pliers into a tiny gap between the neon pink paint and a roll of emergency plastic greenery. Frank and Bob... and maybe Patrick, and then everyone else.

Technically, Patrick was in with the “everyone else’s” on account of his being an Imagineer’s assistant...and sharing an office with the King of all the Tinkerbells, Peter Wentz, New Orleans’ Lead Imagineer.

But Frank, who was willing to admit he spent a lot of time perfecting this system of demarcation during his workday, was going to overlook the Wentz factor for Patrick’s sake. Patrick was a cool guy. He couldn’t help being Pete’s favorite.

So yeah, there was Frank, Bob, Patrick... And Ray...better not forget Ray, up at club 33. Ray owned. Frank, Bob, Patrick, Ray...and then there was everyone else.

Frank pushed the last of his gear into a cranny at the back of the cart, stuffed a pair of gardening gloves in his back pack and shifted his second best toolbox off to one side. As he did, he glanced back at the new Tink in time to see him wave in Frank’s direction as he walked past.

Before he could stop himself Frank waved back and the guy’s face lit up, wide mouthed and sunshine bright.

And Frank was so busy staring he didn’t notice the leg of his regulation safari shorts catch on the little plastic ducktail at the back of his cart. He stumbled forward, arms windmilling, and tripped over his third best toolbox.

With a shout - which may or may not have sounded like a girlish scream - Frank upended and face-planted the border shrubbery.

“Jeez, are you okay, man?” The Tinkerbell yelled, rushing over and hauling Frank out of the undergrowth. Setting his folder aside he started brushing Frank down as soon as he had him on his feet.

Frank spat greenery and tried to scrabble back some modicum of dignity.

The guy bent down and retrieved Frank’s regulation Mickey ears from the ground where they’d tumbled when he fell and dusted them off.

Frank winced, took the ears and jammed them back on his head.

He looked at the guy from under his brows. The guy wasn’t laughing at Frank, so there was that, but still... _Fuck_ , thought Frank.

“You’ve got like,” the Tink reached out and plucked a large branch from behind Frank’s ear. He held it up for Frank to see and shrugged. “All over you man.”

Frank shrank back. “Yes. Okay. Thanks. Yes. Yeah, I’m good,” he muttered as he brushed the last of the laburnum off his safari shorts.

They stood there, Frank with his hands on his hips, cheeks glowing, ears on crooked, staring at the ground; the Tink wringing his hands and smiling sheepishly.

“My name is Gerard,” he said finally. “Um, I just started here. Today.”

Frank nodded, ignoring the hand Gerard held out after introducing himself. “Frank,” he bit out. “Maintenance.”

After a second or two Gerard pulled his hand back, looked at it like maybe there was something wrong with it and wiped his palm on his thigh.

“Maintenance? That’s a…funny...name...um...” The guy laughed uncomfortably, and then there was silence. “I started today,” he said again, desperation creeping into his voice. The Tink, _Gerard_ , shook his head and smiled at Frank, all his teeth (tiny, weird, sharp) on show.

Frank scowled some more. He pulled another branch out of his hair; there were grass stains on his knees.

“I’m just looking for New Orleans Square,” Gerard said. “That’s where I’m...you know...starting. Um...”

 _Jesus wept,_ thought Frank, before he nodded, dragging the guy onto the cart and pulling out of his parking space. He could dump the guy on Wentz. They’d make a great pair.

 

*

 

Frank learned a lot on the way over the newest part of the park with its newest team member.

Frank had learned that Gerard liked comic books, D&D, The Misfits, croquet (Seriously? The fuck?), Audrey Hepburn and Harry Houdini.

He’d discovered that Gerard could French braid hair, liked barbecue sauce on his French fries (the weirdo) and thought Iron Maiden’s _Killers_ was probably the greatest LP in the history of British Metal.

Frank was now in possession of the knowledge that Gerard’s last name was Way and that the guy really fucking liked to talk.

And what’s more, Frank learned that Gerard believed in M-I-C (See you real soon!) K-E-Y (Why? Because we LIKE you!). He believed hard.

“So, let me get this straight,” said Frank, signaling a left turn with a honk of his Donald horn, “Mickey Mouse saved your life?”

“A-huh,” said Gerard, his eyes brimming with earnest passion. “I was totally wasting my life, but one day I flipped on the TV and there he was. Mickey M-O-U-S-E. And I just knew. I kind of got into the idea that I could make a difference here. You know? Make people happy.”

Frank stared. The guy wasn’t even vaguely joking.

“Also, there’s like the history and stuff.” Gerard continued. “I mean, that’s why I wanted to work in New Orleans Square. And lo and behold,” he laughed again. “Mickey provides!”

“Huh.” Frank turned back to driving just in time to slam on the brakes and let three Goofys and an Aladdin cross by the entrance to Frontier land. Gerard waved at them; one of the Goofys waved back.

“History and stuff,” said Frank in the tone he usually reserved for small children and Republicans.

“Yeah!” Gerard answered brightly. “The hidden tunnels and the dead bodies in the Haunted mansion,” he said. “The stuff they found when they started digging the foundations and shit?”

He said this as if he was waiting for Frank to suddenly get it. ‘Oh Yeah! The history stuff!’

Frank wasn’t going to get it though. Because there wasn’t anything to fucking get.

He glanced at Gerard and Gerard grinned even wider.

“And the Imagineers’ Graveyard, of course.” Gerard touched a finger to the side of his nose and winked. Frank barely managed to avoid mounting the pavement and taking out a garbage can.

“You probably can’t talk about it, ‘cause I know they keep that shit on the down low,” said Gerard, nodding. “It’s cool. I guess you have to be here a while before they tell you about the secret stuff,” he grinned.

 _Jesus_ , thought Frank. _He’s an actual mental person._ Gerard was talking about that old legend of the Imagineers’ Graveyard – a supposedly super secret warehouse where all the crazy old, pot-smoking Imagineers of yesteryear hid their LSD dreaming experiments in animatronics. It was total bullshit, of course. A lame joke made up by staff to mess with Tinks.

Frank stared at Gerard and gave him a patronizing nod.

Gerard didn’t seem to notice.

“I just mean this place is more than just some theme park,” he said waving his hand at the attractions as they zoomed by. “It’s got history, mystery. There are actual dead bodies in the Haunted Mansion. Like... for real, you know?”

Gerard stopped and looked down at his hands. Frank noticed they were twisting in his lap.

“It’s part of the national psyche, right?” Gerard said, finally. “And, like, when you become part of that you can really make a difference to people and...”

Frank took a deep breath as Gerard’s patter washed over him. He let the… well, it felt a little like rage… leak out of him. Fucking Tinks and their…their… Shit. He looked at Gerard’s hands, still twisting. They guy was pretty nervous. Or nervy, maybe? Whatever, Frank decided to cut him some slack.

“Look. Gerard?” Frank interrupted, fixing his eyes back on the road. “I, ah, I just fix sh... things. I don’t know where you got all that bull...stuff from, but I’ve been at this Park for seven years and I never heard about any tunnels or any...hidden shi...stuff. It’s just machines and computers and my daily nightmare underground rounds of grease, light bulbs and sewage blockages.”

He winced internally at how nasty his voice sounded. The striped barber’s pole at the entrance of New Orleans Square came into view. Frank put his foot to the floor.

“Oh,” said Gerard.

Frank glanced over. Gerard was chewing his lip and looking out at the park as it whizzed past.

Frank frowned. He turned to Gerard again. “But what do I know, right?” Frank muttered and shrugged.

“Yeah. Yeah, man,” said Gerard perking up again and grinning back at Frank. His smile was pretty big, thought Frank, and he looked back up in time to avoid crashing into a guy in a Tarzan loincloth and Nike sneakers crossing Royal Street.

“Jiminy cricket, Iero, you A Hole!” Tarzan yelled.

Frank flipped him off as they careened past.

“Oops!” Gerard chuckled, leaning out of the cart to watch Tarzan disappear in their dust.

Frank glanced at Gerard and found himself smiling back.

“Oops,” he agreed.

So Gerard was a believer. A _Tinkerbell_. Whatever, thought Frank. So long as the guy kept it to himself, right?

Because, Frank wasn’t sure he’d ever believed in anything much, but if he _was_ gonna throw his lot in with something, it sure as shit wasn’t going to be a five foot tall mouse and whatever the hell Goofy was. That shit was whack.

“God, you’re so awesome looking out for me like this,” Gerard laughed. “Seriously. I’m so excited I could just...” He let out a huge sigh and plucked a leaf from the neck of Frank’s polo shirt.

 

*

 

They pulled up in New Orleans Square just as Pete was dragging an orange crate out into the middle of the space and hopping up onto it. Patrick, looking much more sedate in his slate-grey overalls, stood next to him and handed Pete his notes and cardboard megaphone.

Frank pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head. The megaphone was candy striped. It matched Pete’s pants.

A bunch of uncomfortable looking new people stood around staring at a bunch of semi-bored looking staff. Frank parked at the back of the crowd and stayed in the cart. Gerard hopped out and stood next to it, bouncing on the balls of his feet to see over everyone’s heads.

“Hello!” Pete shouted into the brass mouthpiece. “For those of you who are new here today, I am Peter Lewis Kingston Wentz the third. And I am the Imagineer of New Orleans Square!”

He said New Orleans like a native Louisianan would, _Noorlins_. Frank sneered. A cheer went up round the assembled staff, new and old. Pete held up a hand to quiet them down.

“By now you will have noticed a few new faces in the Park,” said Pete. “Can I get a warm welcome for the new Haunted Mansion Cast?! WOOT! WOOT!”

He started cheering and clapping one hand on his thigh, and there was more cheering from the assembled staff. Gerard clapped and jumped a bit.

Frank closed his eyes and rubbed his face.

“We’re going with the buddy system, guys,” continued Pete. “Pattycakes here has all the deets, but for the next month the new guys will work with just about all of you. Eventually, you’ll be working here, in my happy place, New Orleans Square. But before I let you loose in here, you need to know everything about out there, the rest of the park. From Brendon’s corn dog secrets, to Greta’s face painting tactics. Right. Over to you, Lunchbox.”

Patrick, stony faced, waved a sheet of paper over his head and shrugged off Pete’s offer of the megaphone. Frank really loved that take-no-shit kid.

“We’ve got a roster so we’ll be pairing all you old hands with some of the newbies. Line up here and I’ll check you off the list.” A weaker cheer went up around the staff.

 _Christ on a bike_ , thought Frank, _That’s just what I need, some stupid-assed failed actor getting all up in my shit while I’m trying to change a light bulb. Awesome._

Frank wondered when he’d be buddied up with one of the new guys. He wondered which one it would be. He deliberately did not get out of his cart. He definitely did not think of Gerard.

He stayed in his cart and did some more scowling until there was only him, Pete, Pete’s megaphone and the orange crate left in the square. Patrick was guiding a short kid with crazy hair off towards Toontown.

“It’s not personal, Frank,” said Pete, leaning against Donald’s plastic beak on the cart. “It’s just I figure you work better on your own.”

 _Abso-fucking-lutely,_ thought Frank. “Whatever, Pete,” he said and quacked his Donald Duck horn before trundling out of the Square.

*

Frank absolutely did not give a shit that he didn’t have a new kid palmed off on him. Seriously he’d only been at the Park for seven years. What could he possibly have to share with anyone, right?

Later that day Frank saw Gerard had been buddied up with Brendon the corn dog guy – a Tink to the core.

Frank made sure not to wave when Gerard did this time. He made sure to frown and defiantly stick an unlit cigarette he was hiding in his top pocket of his safari suit _actually in his mouth right there, in the middle of the day, in the middle of the park,_ before he hopped on his cart and peeled out of Tomorrowland at speed.

Sadly, ‘at speed’ meant about two miles an hour, and Gerard had already stopped to talk to a bunch of kids with cotton candy and an enormous Goofy toy anyway, so he completely failed to see Frank’s small act of up-yours.

But still, Frank had a point to make and he felt he’d made it.

He tucked the cigarette, still unlit, back in the top pocket of his safari suit and made sure neither Bob nor anyone else in Park Security - like that dude Armand - was coming for him and his pack of Luckies, before heading off to finish his morning rounds.

 

*

 

  
_“All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.”  
-Walt Disney_   


 

Tuesday mornings Frank always tried to get an hour in at his workshop, just as a precaution against him killing any of the guests or just, you know, randomly loosening bolts as pay back.

It was relaxing in there because Frank liked to build shit.

That was his thing. Just quietly.

The first ride he’d ever designed, when he was just a kid, was a new version of Small World. He’d spent hours on it, turning the roundel tune into more of a lullaby, including scenes from fairytales, in amidst the cultural stuff. He’d wanted to show guests the world like kids saw it, where the magic and the real stuff sat side by side; Chinese dragons dancing with Welsh dragons, Leprechauns dancing with the three bears. He still had that design somewhere. It was pretty stupid.

The ride he was working on now was so vomit-inducing they would need to include a room with beds next to it for people to recover. He called it the Jawbreaker. He’d started designing it when he’d started working the Disneyland night parties. It was basically just an excuse to strap teenagers into a chair and punch them in the face.

Frank sneered as he added another 970 degree spin corner drop to his plans. That shit was sick.

He leaned back from his drawing table. Tacked to the wall above him were a number of rides he’d designed over the years.

The last ride he’d taken to Pete - years ago - was tacked up behind the Jawbreaker.

He’d felt sure at the time that Pete would like that one - a 25-minute high speed simulated desert road chase with laser guns and bazookas and bad guys dressed up like insane asylum wardens in Dracula masks. Guests would ride in simulated Trans Ams and get 3D glasses in the form of personalized masks.

Frank had called it Vaya. He’d been really excited about that one.

Pete, not so much.

“It’s, um, great Frank…” he’d said, grinning that fucking… fake grin of his. “Really great… but the aftermath _isn’t_ secondary in the Happiest Place on Earth. This isn’t Mad Max and Beyond the Thunderdome park, or whatever. This is _Disneyland_. You can’t simulate kidnapping kids at Disneyland!”

Frank added a little flourish to the scale work ups on a 700 dregree, bone liquefying spin drop he’d just added to the Jawbreaker and tacked it up on the wall.

The Jawbreaker was now so gargantuan and sprawling if it was ever made, it would cover most of Anaheim. On paper it looked as though the ride had erupted out of the heart of Disney to take over the whole OC. The design stretched across all Frank’s old plans still clinging to the wall where he’d pinned them so long ago, back when he’d believed Pete was serious about wanting to see Frank’s ideas.

“The best part of believe is the lie...” muttered Frank as he smoothed down a corner of a 980 degree twist he’d added last week. He pressed another couple of pins in, right over the last scrap of what looked like a Welsh dragon’s tail.

“This one’s for California Adventure – Where all your spews come true!” Frank sneered.

The clock on the wall ticked 1pm.

Frank picked up his tool belt and headed for the canteen.

 

*

 

“So you see, in some ways Mickey is a metaphor, not just for the American dream but for the triumph of innocence too. He’s the kernel of innocence that remains in all of us, no matter how... grown up and jaded we get...”

It was the new guy. Gerard. Standing over in one corner, surrounded by starry-eyed newbies, holding court. Frank let out a laugh of disbelief. This guy just would not quit.

He was still laughing as he took a seat next to Brendon the corn dog guy with his lunch tray.

Brendon looked up. “Dude, are you ok?” He asked looking concerned.

“I’m fine,” said Frank, coaching his body back into his default pissed off mode, “what the fuck?”

He tried not to watch as Gerard hopped over to their table and sat down opposite them.

“Sorry,” said Brendon looking anything but. “It’s just I don’t think I’ve ever heard you laugh before.”

Frank, appetite suddenly gone, grabbed his smokes off the table and scooted back his chair.

“You _should_ laugh,” said Gerard with a quizzical smile. “All the time you should laugh, because...”

He turned and gazed out the small, dirty window next to them and frowned. The window looked straight onto the ratty-ass end of It’s A Small World.

“It sounds so great when you do, ” Gerard continued. He looked back at Frank and smiled, soft and warm. “Are you going to smoke? Come with?” Gerard asked, pointing at himself.

Something about the way Gerard’s straight, blunt nailed finger rested in the centre of his chest and the way his eyes became impossibly wide; in that second Frank’s heart skipped a beat.

“If you want,” he mumbled, blinking and not meeting Brendon’s eyes as he pushed away from the table.

 

*

 

They walked out to the back lot, around behind the dumpsters, and Frank offered Gerard a Lucky Strike, which he accepted.

Gerard rolled it between his fingers a bit before sticking it in the corner of his mouth, crossing his arms and tucking his hands into his pits.

Frank flicked his Zippo and lit his own cig. When he looked up, he saw that Gerard had craned his neck forward like a turtle and was flicking the cig in his mouth up and down. Apparently some kind of code for ‘light me’ or something.

“Sorry!” said Frank reaching up to light Gerard’s smoke. Gerard stared straight at Frank’s face, pulling on the cigarette and puffing smoke out the side of his crooked mouth. Frank stared straight at his hands cupping the flame of the Zippo.

Gerard tipped back his head and a small, almost shy smile tilted the corner of his lips.

“Thanks,” he said, plucking the smoke out of his mouth with those pale, straight fingers. “It’s kind of awesome how great everyone is here.”

Frank just nodded. His mind was completely blank.

“Brendon is cool.”

“Yeah,” said Frank. “Um... Patrick is pretty cool... I don’t know if you...”

“Yeah! Patrick is awesome,” said Gerard with bouncy enthusiasm. “He’s like... yeah...” Gerard waved his arms about a bit and grinned.

They stood nodding and looking around. Frank silently flailing about in his mind for something, anything to say. Oh God, oh God...

“Have you ever been on It’s a Small world?” He said, finally.

Gerard nodded. “It’s my favorite ride. There’s just something about it.”

Frank blinked. “Really?”

“Yeah, I mean...apart from the end... when everything goes ‘white’,” Gerard raised his eyebrows. “That’s a shitty metaphor for togetherness. But yeah... the.... the gathering of all human culture, and uniting it with one never-ending theme of togetherness and love? That’s fucking awesome!”

“Um... yeah... I...” Frank muttered, all thought momentarily stolen again.

“I always thought there should be more though... you know?” Gerard stopped, taking a big long drag of the ciggy. “Like a coming down, from the mania of the ride... like... I don’t know. It needs a quiet part.”

He just sort of stared at Frank with those wide, golden eyes of his.

Frank’s mind, usually whip crack sharp, completely failed him. He just sort of stared straight back.

After a second or two Gerard shrugged, grinned and strolled off around the dumpsters humming what sounded to Frank like Run To The Hills.

Frank took the opportunity of Gerard turning his back to kick himself in the shin, firstly for offering the weirdo a cigarette, secondly for apologizing about it for God’s sake, thirdly for lighting the damned thing for him like Gerard was his girl and finally, not speaking to the guy once the cigarettes were lit on account of how he now had butterflies all up in his lame assed gullet.

“Fuck my life,” he muttered as he stubbed his butt out on the dumpster and went back inside.

 

*

 

  
_"We felt that the public, and especially the children, like animals that are cute and little."  
-Walt Disney_   


 

“You are a mother fucking cheat and a liar, Robert Bryar, and I will end you.”

Wednesday poker night on the Pirate Ship - after hours - was totally illegal.

“End you, I say!”

Disney illegal, at any rate.

But that never seemed to stop there being one every week at 10pm on Friday when the last of the cotton candy stuffed pre-teens had been bundled off to God knew where, and the last pair of regulation Mickey ears had been packed away in its locker.

“Sit the fuck down Dewees, before everyone sees the ace you’ve been sitting on all night.”

James plonked himself back down in his seat, laughing. He threw a hand full of monkey nuts at Bob’s head. Bob smirked back at him. “That’s right. Throw your nuts at me. I’m still not interested.”

James went bright red; Frank tried not to laugh in his face.

Alicia rubbed her hands together. “C’mon, c’mon you pussies, ante up,” she said. “I got me a mean hand and I want to clean you out so I can get home in time for Rock of Love Bus.” She chucked a couple of bottle caps in the pile on the table and looked at Bob. “Let’s go ladies!”

“Al, that kind of sexist language has no place at the happiest fuckin’ place on earth,” said Pete, shaking his head and raising her bet a packet of Reese’s pieces and a half used bic lighter.

Bob leaned over the small betting pool and picked up the lighter. “Are you kidding with this shit?”

Pete shrugged. “It makes fire. What the hell do you want?”

Bob threw it back in the pile. Along with his hand. “What do I care. I got nothin'.”

Everyone at the table turned and looked at Frank. “Fold,” he said.

“Dude, could you be any lamer?” Alicia asked, rocking her stool back on its rear legs and sipping her drink.

Frank was about to retaliate with a cutting barb about her mother and her resemblance to the back end of a bus, when Patrick clambered down the rigging into the hold. “Hey guys, guys. Schechter’s posting the list. He’s posting it right now. I just saw him.”

Frank sat up straight before shaking himself and sinking back into his seat.

“Yeah?” said Dewees, taking the chance to peek at Bob’s cards, while his attention was on Patrick. “You see who was on it?”

The employee of the month list. Chief Imagineer, Schechter, posted it in the staff room after hours on the first Friday of every month. Frank used to actually give a rat’s ass. But these days, his chance of making the list were shit to none.

“Well,” said Patrick, looking at Pete. Pete seemed to give it some thought and then nod. “I guess I can let the cat out of the bag. The Tink’s on it,” Patrick said, and beamed at Frank.

Frank blinked. Everyone was beaming at him.

The fuck?

“What the fuck?”

Bob rolled his eyes. “He’s really good, Frank.”

“Thank God someone from the new lots is,” said Patrick cracking a beer. “That Alex kid is a fucking nightmare.”

“I know, right?” Alicia chimed in. “I caught the kid trying to get into 33 the other day. Asshole.”

Bob nodded at her and looked back at Frank. “I mean the new guy, he’s really good.”

Alicia started retelling the story of Alex the amazing Asshat and ‘New People: How they will Destroy Us All’. Meanwhile, Frank leaned towards Bob.

“I’m sure he is,” Frank whispered. “But what’s it go to do with me?”

Alicia, ear wigging as usual, stopped what she was saying and barked a laugh. “Dude,” she said.

“What?”

She shook her head and Frank bristled. What the hell?

“Well, we...all... thought you guys were friends,” said Pete, tapping his cards into a neat pile and fanning them out again, nonchalantly. “Buddies, buds, compadres, you get me?”

Frank’s eyebrows shot up. “I haven’t said more than, like, three words to the guy.”

“It’s true,” said James, trying not to laugh. “You do go pretty non verbal when he’s around.”

Frank felt his cheeks go hot. Fuck, they were probably red.

“Fuck off,” he said. “Are we playing cards here, or what?”

“CARDS,” they all yelled back, except for Dewees, who yelled, “OR WHAT!” Alicia pulled everyone’s hands back in and began shuffling.

Frank took a deep breath and pretended to look at his new hand.

It wasn’t his fault. There was just something about the guy. Gerard...messed with Frank’s equanimity. He... _bothered_ Frank.

It’d been two weeks since that Gerard guy had started at the park and Frank hadn’t seen him in the same place twice. Not that he’d been checking; just Gerard was hard to miss what with the hair and that...face and all.

On Wednesday Frank had seen him leading a bunch of little old ladies in a rendition of _Some Day My Prince Will Come_. No shit, it was a train wreck. Like, Glenn Danzig fronting The Smiths or something. But the old ladies lapped it up.

Frank had seen Pete grinning at Gerard’s performance too. _Big gold star for the new boy_ , thought Frank with not a little bitterness. He was pretty sure he didn’t get gold stars on Pete’s _My Crew, How Are They So Awesome ?_ chart these days.

Frank took a swig on the non-alcoholic beer Bryar let them bring along to poker night so they could at least have the semblance of being adults. It tasted like rat’s piss.

Thing was, Frank tried to steer clear of the guy. But he was just.... there. It wasn’t Frank’s fault.

A pair of wide bright yellow webbed feet appeared at the top of the rope ladder. Brendon, playing Donald this week, had finally arrived. “Hey guys!” He hollered, stopping to force the fat white butt of the suit through the hatch and lower himself after it. “Guys! Frank’s imaginary boyfriend made employee of the ... Oh... Hey Frank!”

Frank, clutching a royal flush, quietly fumed.

 

*

 

At 10:05 the next morning, five minutes into Smile Time, Frank was pretty glad all the beer in the park was non-alcoholic. He still felt pretty seedy. He’d been up all night trying to figure out what the fuck the guys had meant. He’d come up blank.

Now there he was, sitting in his workshop, still obsessing over it, when his walky-talky began to crackle. Pete’s voice, clunky and distorted, sending him over to Tomorrowland to check out a flood on Nemo’s sub. Nice.

When Frank arrived, Gerard was there on the dock singing a round of Row, Row, Row Your Sub with a line of people waiting for a ride. Awe. Some.

“Gerard?”

Gerard glanced over his shoulder. “Okay folks, one of Nemo’s best men is here to get this show on the road. I’ll be back in a bit and we can get our adventure underway! In the mean time, keep singing!”

He waved his arms like a conductor a little more then turned and bounded over to Frank. Literally bounded. Frank felt his heart speed up just a little as Gerard approached. _Oh, for fuck’s sake,_ he thought.

“Hey!” He grinned. “Sorry about the singing, Frankie; the natives were restless, you know?”

Frank blinked. _Frankie?_ He stared up at Gerard. The guy’s skin was really smooth.

Frank shook his head again. “Um, yeah, singing, good way to keep them, ah, docile. Look, I’m gonna...” He pointed at the open hatch of the Argonaut sub.

“Okay, cool!” Gerard said and, despite Frank rolling his eyes, followed him into the sub.

It was kind of a tight space down there. Okay, it seated 25 people, but Gerard seemed to be crowding Frank at every turn. It was annoying as hell. He had this...smell, that was kind of overpowering, like cigarettes and flowers and turps. And he would not shut up.

“So, I was reading about the Imagineers’ Graveyard on this really cool website last night. Apparently this guy, back in the 80s, said he found it behind something called 33? I don’t know what 33 is, but I’ve seen that a couple of times. Is it like an address? Or maybe co-ordinates? What am I saying, two numbers can’t be co-ordinates for sugar. So, I dunno. Have you heard of anything in the park called 33?”

Frank froze. “Nope,” he said, and started stuffing caulking in the hole.

“Weird,” said Gerard.

Frank shrugged and made a mental note to mention it to Bob. He was gonna be pissed.

“So, this is what you do all day, Frankie? Make sure no one drowns?” Gerard asked.

Frank bristled. This wasn’t what he did all day. He thought of his workshop. “Yeah. I fix shit,” he bit out.

“I can tell you’re good with your hands. I bet you can, like draw and stuff too. Right?”

Gerard was pressed up against Frank’s shoulder looking at the tiny bubbling area where water was getting into the sub.

Frank froze. Was Gerard mocking him? He took a deep breath.

“Um...maybe,” he said glancing over his shoulder. “Man, can you like, back up a bit? You’re in my light.”

Gerard moved back. Frank jammed some more caulking into the gap and straightened up.

“Um.” Frank felt exposed suddenly, as if Gerard moving away had left him vulnerable, out in the open. He wanted... God, he was really going weird in the head. He needed to get more rest. His chest felt tight, his heart hammered against it, as if it was out of time.

“I’d like to see your drawings some time, Frankie,” Gerard said then. He shoved his hands into his pockets and smiled at Frank. Frank looked away.

“If you wanted to show me, I mean,” Gerard finished quietly.

Frank didn’t look at him again. He slapped a piece of waterproof tape over the caulking and got out of there pretty fast.

He didn’t let himself remember how unbalanced Gerard had made him feel later that night, alone in his room. He didn’t conjure up the feeling of Gerard pressed up against his back, the way his breath had touched his cheek, just that once.

No, instead he reminded himself of how his soggy sneakers had squelched all day.

Fucking Nemo’s fucking three thousand year old sub. That shit was gross. God only knew what was in that water. It smelt like balls. Fishy, sweaty balls.

Yeah, Frank told himself. Focus on the negative. But it was kinda hard to forget about the sound of Gerard’s voice singing _Row Row Row Your Sub,_ or that he’d been holding this little old lady’s hand, and she’d been grinning like it was the best day ever and it was only going to get better... and Frank didn’t feel like focusing on the negative all that much anymore. He just wanted to sleep.

 

*

 

  
_“All the adversity I've had in my life, all my troubles and obstacles, have strengthened me... You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be_  
the best thing in the world for you.”  
-Walt Disney  


 

On Frank’s first day at Disneyland he’d been led round the park by a towering, Teutonic man-mountain of calm and power called Bob.

“There are rules in the Magic Kingdom,” Bob had said. “Rules you will learn to live by. Or I will end you faster than you can say ‘mommy’.”

Frank had liked him immediately.

Frank had been breaking Bob’s rules on a daily basis ever since.

So he wasn’t at all surprised to find Bob waiting for him when he arrived at work on Thursday morning, clocking in under Sleeping Beauty’s castle, in an area staff jokingly called The Dark Heart.

“I see everything, Iero,” said Bob, looking over a clipboard. “Everything. Everywhere.”

“Hi Frank!” It was Ray, who Frank noticed was standing next to Bob. Really close, next to Bob.

“Hey Ray,” he said. “What’s up?”

“Just getting some...you know...stuff...um...”

The Dark Heart was Bob’s domain, from whence he stoically dispensed the summary justice of Disneyland with swift and vicious alacrity. But Ray, who didn’t get out into the Park all that much was in there, “just getting some stuff,” kind of a lot.

“I am about to dispense the summary justice of Disneyland with swift and vicious alacrity. Again, Frank. On you,” said Bob without looking up.

Frank pretended not to see Bob glance at Ray, or the way Ray’s eyes went all soft and dewy when he did. Frank rolled his eyes instead.

Bob looked back at Frank and fixed him with his patented ‘Zero Tolerance’ look.

“I’m talking about the cigarettes. Seriously, Iero,” said Bob. “Smoking? In the middle of the frikken park? Seriously?”

“What the fu…” stammered Frank but stopped when he saw the Zero Tolerance look back in full effect.

“Swearing is not tolerated in the happiest place on earth either, Frank,” said Ray, eyes fixed on Bob.

“How do you even know I was smoking?” Frank argued.

Bob just blinked and held out his hand. “C’mon, c’mon, I’ll give them back at lunch.”

Frank shook his head and gave Bob a pitying sneer, but handed the pack of Luckies over.

“The Man, Bryar. You work for The Man,” he said, slapping them into Bob’s bear sized paw.

“That’s right, Frank. I work for Uncle Walt, same as you.”

“That’s my lucky Zippo, asshole. Don’t lose it.”

Ray gave Frank a sympathetic smile. Frank just frowned.

The offending items were tucked away in Bob’s inner jacket pocket. He turned and threw another quick smile at Ray, who by then was blushing practically scarlet before brushing past Frank and leaving the office.

“Oh, hey!” Frank called before he was gone.

Bob turned.

“A friend of mine found a reference to 33 on a website. I emailed it to you,” said Frank.

Bob frowned and nodded quickly. “They need you on the Pirate Ship, Iero. Stat,” Bob said as he stomped out.

“How does he always know?” Frank whined when he was gone. But he got nothing from Ray who actually sighed before turning to him and smiling like a chick who just got asked to the prom by the Quarter Back.

“I do not know. But it’s pretty cool to watch.”

Frank scowled.

Ray bounced on his toes a little. “Oh, hey, can you stop by 33 later? Something arrived that I, ah, need your help with.”

“The _Gaggia_?” Frank asked, his voice a low whisper. “It’s fucking here? Holy shit, dude, did you go with the vintage Deco? Or...”

Ray beamed. “The Deco.”

“And?”

“Fucking _owns,_ dude,” Ray said, a small smile escaping his mouth. “So... the staff need training...do you think you could...?” Ray’s voice trailed off, hopefully, his eyebrows raised.

Frank grinned, he could not wait to get his hands on that machine.

“‘Course, dude. Name a time and a place and I’m there.”

“Awesome,” Ray said, tucking his hair back behind his ears and nodding. “So,” he said as he linked his arm through Frank’s and led them both out the door. “You and the hot Tink, I understand you two can’t stay away from each other.”

Frank closed his eyes. The entire park was one ginormous, big brother nightmare. “Jesus, you guys,” he said under his breath to the general Disneyland employee population, currently represented by a frizzy-haired restaurant manager. He shook Ray’s arm out of his.

“Oh, come on,” Ray said. “Don’t be like that. Say, does he like coffee?” he asked, nudging Frank’s shoulder with his own.

Frank rolled his eyes. “How the hell should I know,” he said, holding the door open for Ray. “Probably, maybe...Yes, I think he likes coffee.”

Ray raised his eyebrows.

“What, it’s not like I can bring him up to 33 and show off on the _Gaggia_.” God, Frank couldn’t wait to touch that coffee machine. He and Ray would make that bad-ass brass baby sing. Only the very best at club 33.

“Why not? We could show her off together? Don’t worry, bro. I’ll make you look good.” Ray chimed with a wink, walking out the door into the Park.

“Bob would kick your ass for even suggesting that,” laughed Frank.

“Hmmmm... I don’t think he’d _kick_ it. Hit it maybe,” sighed Ray, winking again. “But, wait,” Ray said, rounding on Frank. “So... you _do_ want to show off to the new guy then?”

Frank took a deep, long suffering, breath, and headed over to Pirates.

 

*

 

It was ten minutes out from closing time.

Tonight Gerard was at the Mansion. And, wouldn’t you know it, Frank was fixing shit at the Mansion. That’s just how it turned out. It’s not like Frank fucking planned it or anything. Fuck.

Gerard was sitting on the railing picking pieces of peeling paint off the banister, squinting into the dusk and talking to one of the other ghostly Cast (Bill? Will? Gill? Frank couldn’t remember, they all looked the same to him), while Frank fixed a light bulb from the garden lights below them. The lights had needed fixing for ages. Like, weeks, probably. It was about time Frank got on it.

New Orleans Square had already been cleared out for the night, all the happy mom and pop tourists sent on their way to the resort or their hotels in Anaheim. It was pretty quiet, peaceful.

There was sweet, rosy, Queen of the Night blooming somewhere, fireflies in the Magnolia trees and crickets chirping in the undergrowth. Not for the first time Frank thought working in this place would be really awesome if there weren’t any goddamned guests.

The sound of Gerard waxing lyrical about something to do with Mickey, and aqua being the color of the frikken universe or something wafted down to Frank with the soft scent of the night blooming flowers.

“I want to make a difference, you know?” Gerard said, before half-turning and flicking a particularly large piece of curling paint into the undergrowth.

It missed Frank’s head by a bare inch. His heart almost stopped, but when he looked up, he realized Gerard had no idea he was even there, crouching in the azalea bushes behind him.

The other guy though - Alex? Yeah, Alex, with the crazy hair. That was his name. No. No, wait, it was Asshat Alex - was smirking at straight him. Frank tugged his regulation Mickey ears down firmly on his head and went back to fixing the light. Why the fuck didn’t they just fuck off home? It was late and all the guests were long gone.

But then a mother, with sobbing child in tow, appeared from the depths of the Mansion and started thanking them profusely for letting them use the staff bathroom.

She told her kid to say thank you to the nice men for waiting for them, but the kid, clearly overwrought from a full day of enforced fun just started wailing again.

“That’s no problem, ma’am,” said Asshat, sounding exactly like it’s the biggest problem ever.

Frank stood up about to say something about giving them a lift in the duck cart or some shit, but Gerard had moved in front of them.

He was tugging his costume waistcoat down and crouching down in front of the kid.

“Hey, kid,” Gerard said, and the kid’s wail choked off into slightly angry sobbing. “Wanna know a Disney secret?”

Gerard smiled and somehow the kid smiled back through the tears, nodding. At which point Gerard took the cuff of his billowy shirt and whipped his hand out behind the kid’s ear. When he pulled it back in front of the kid’s face he was pinching a shiny new quarter between his fingers.

“They don’t call it the _Magic_ Kingdom for nothing. That’s the biggest Disney secret of all,” he said with a wink, dropping the coin into the kid’s hand.

The kid giggled. Gerard stood, stroked the kid’s hair back from his forehead and wiped away some snot and tears with the cuff of his shirtsleeve.

The mom started giggling and went all ‘well, I’ll be, aren’t you the sweetest thing?’ on Gerard, which just, no, thought Frank.

The kid, no longer crying, rolled his eyes before dragging her off in the direction of Main Street and the Park exit.

Frank heard Asshat say: “Dude that was dumb. You know wardrobe is gonna charge you to dry-clean that shit.”

“I don’t care, Alex,” said Gerard staring after the boy and his mom. “No kid’s going home crying on my watch.”

And Frank didn’t know what was happening. But it felt like his heart just about leaped out of his chest. He scrabbled around in the dirt packing his gear away as quick as he could.

“Oh! Hey Frankie!” Gerard said, finally noticing him down in the bushes when he started chucking pliers and ratchets back in his toolbox.

But Frank didn’t answer; he was in a hurry. Got to get the cart back to the workshop and all, lickety-split. He sketched a quick wave in Gerard’s direction and zoomed off.

That night in bed he lay on top of his covers and jacked off hard to thoughts of Gerard tugging open the tightly buttoned cuffs and collar of his puffy sleeved costume. And when he came it was to the imaginary sound of Gerard, his mouth pressed just under Frank’s ear, saying, “Do you want to know a secret, Frankie?”

He totally hated himself right after, even before the buzz was fully over.

 

*

 

  
_"I don't want the public to see the world they live in... I want them to feel they are in another world."  
-Walt Disney_   


 

On Friday Frank happened to notice Gerard walking with a Goofy towards Tomorrowland.

Frank had seen Gerard with the Goofy a lot. He felt a spike of irrational anger over it. _He’d_ never get away with hanging out with one of the main cast like that. Bob would be all over his ass in a second. “Main cast have one minder, and one only. That minder is me.”

That’s what Bob would say.

But there was Gerard, again, and hugging that fucking Goofy as if they were old buddies.

Frank sighed. Sometimes he really just... hated this place.

Frank had no idea how he even ended up working at Disneyland. He’d only applied because someone told him that they’d heard from a friend that a cousin had said they heard Disney were hiring.

So, sure, he had five “The Magic Started…” buttons in his locker - one for every year he’d worked there. What was he going to do, throw them away?

Besides, they were pinned to a Magic Kingdom pennant along with a picture of Yale Gracey, the first Disney Imagineer, which had been in the locker when he arrived. The covered up a hole in the door of the locker. He kept meaning to chuck it, but never got around to it.

Frank guessed even the Magic Kingdom was better than working in some Jersey chop shop, even if he had to suck corporate cock on a daily basis.

Frank packed up his gear and left the park; left Goofy and Gerard behind, and headed back to his workshop.

Pete wanted to know if he could increase the load in the Haunted Mansion lift and Frank was happiest doing this stuff, running the numbers and working out the equations that’d get that much more power out of the mechanism.

He hadn’t done a lot of it lately, on account of all the work he’d had to catch up on, out in the park.

The thought of which gave him a spike of anger. It was starting to piss him off how distracting Gerard was.

It was so not just because Gerard was (a1) hot. He had the most insane, smooth, olive skin. His hair should have been kind of gross; it was shaggy and sometimes pretty greasy, but it was this violent red color that just made his eyes, his eyes….seem to glow.

He was taller than Frank, but had this kind of adorable, self effacing stoop so when he looked down at Frank he was also kind of looking at him through his eye lashes.

And he seemed to do that a lot because (a2) Gerard was one earnest motherfucker. He never seemed to say anything important unless he was looking straight into Frank’s eyes, and either tucking his scraggy hair behind his ears or gesturing wildly with his (a3) broad, capable-looking hands.

But Gerard was also (b) really frikken smart and (c) a total dork who thought nothing of turning Huey, Dewey, and Louie into a metaphor for America’s Foreign Policy or Br’er Rabbit into a homily on citizenship and participating in your society, and following it up by humming the chorus from Megadeth’s Symphony for Destruction.

And it shouldn’t have, it just should not have affected Frank, but Gerard’s (d) Tinkerbell-ness was just really frikken charming.

As long as Frank has worked at the park, he didn’t think he’d ever met anyone who genuinely gave this much of a shit about the guests as Gerard Way.

Gerard told him once that he just wants everyone to leave Disneyland with the same happy excitement and anticipation they arrived with, because that’s how he felt everyday. And when Gerard talked like this Frank found himself nodding instead of snorting; smiling instead of scowling. Those visitors should get to keep their dreams, their hopes, and (e) Gerard made it happen.

Just because Frank wasn’t built like that didn’t mean 40,000 visitors a day couldn’t keep the romance of the park alive.

“You know what _he_ did on Wednesday?” Brendon had said earlier when Frank was packing boxes of batter on the back of his cart for the corn dog stand.

Frank had already kind of known what was coming but he was powerless to stop Brendon when he was on a Tinkerbell roll.

“The whole bus load of Buffaloes was in,” said Brendon in an awed, quiet voice. “They ran out of hot dogs in Critter Country, so Gee entertained them for three hours with inspirational stories about mammalian mating rituals and stuff. It was awesome, man. And then he like, made these freaky-assed balloon animals with like two heads and stuff for their kids until catering sorted something out.”

And this, this ability to transform the shittiest of afternoons in the theme park from hell into a glowing magical description of, like, dancing hippos and ostriches, this was (e)the bottom line.

In his workshop, Frank looked down at the paper he was working on.

_(a1,a2,a3)+(b) x (c) to the power of d over e = FRANK IS FUCKED._

Because, Gerard wafted around being all…distracty and friendly with Goofy, that asshole, and Frank wanted kick that guy in the throat, and then don a fucking costume to impress Gerard.

Except every time Gerard came within three feet of Frank, Frank turned into a ginormous douche, and his heart wouldn’t beat properly.

And that realization made Frank want to fucking quit and never look back.

Frank finished the numbers on the Haunted Mansion lift, noticed he’d written _Gerard Way = FUCK_ in the corner, re-wrote all the numbers on a clean piece of paper, screwed the old piece into a ball and torched it with his acetylene welder before traipsing over to Pete’s ‘explosion in a candy factory’ office with the good copy.

Once there, Pete’s ‘explosion in a candy factory’ face informed him that, yes, he would need to climb inside the machine housing of the mansion lift - possibly the most excruciatingly filthy and horrible job in the history of jobs, not including backed up drains, the Tweedle Dee Experience and cleaning out Nemo’s pond - to get more accurate figures, because yes, Pete had plans. And, yes that needed to be done today on account of it being nearly the weekend and all.

It had one saving grace, this unspeakable job. It lacked heights. So he couldn’t whine too much. He wasn’t climbing up anything or winching down into anything. He shuddered to think of it.

Frank moped his way back to his cart, just in time to see Gerard with his hand up inside the Goofy’s head, doing... something... he hated to think what.

The Goofy jiggled his head around a bit, fitted it correctly and hugged Gerard.

Gerard’s smile was so bright Frank had to look away, a burning hot burst of shame in his chest for the dozens of times he thought that smile might be just for him. And anger at the others for encouraging him to think so. Fuck those guys. Fuck Goofy. And fuck Gerard Way, anyhow.

Frank turned, trying to find anything to focus on that wasn’t Gerard’s bright smile for somebody else, which was when he saw Asshat Alex, the other new guy, attempting to hot wire his Donald Cart.

“What the fucking fuck?”

“Oh!” replied Alex, not looking in the slightest bit sheepish. “I just wondered how it worked.”

“Get out.” All of Frank’s anger was focused like a pinpoint on this fucking kid.

Alex clambered out of the cart. “Say man, can you give me a ride to...”

Frank didn’t hear where the little asshole wanted to go; he’d glanced over his shoulder and seen Gerard and Goofy playing patty cake with a couple of teenage girls. At the end of one round, Gerard smacked Goofy’s ass and made the teens fall all over each other laughing.

Frank put his foot down and left the teenagers, Alex, and the fucking Goofy in the dust.

 

*

 

  
_“Kindly step all the way in please and make room for everyone…_  
there’s no turning back now…”  
-The Narrator, Disneyland’s Hunted Mansion ride  


 

When old Uncle Walt first sketched out his plan for the Happiest Place on Earth, he didn’t have a Haunted Mansion in mind at all.

In fact, New Orleans Square didn’t come into being for a whole ten years after the Park first opened.

But it was still old enough to require Frank’s attention plenty. He usually got a call from Pete or Patrick at least once a week to head over to Pirates, or to the Mansion because one of the animatronics has gone Westworld on them.

Sadly Pete’s idea of animatronics going Westworld (“Goddammit, the Headless Ghosts are doing the werewolf howl again!”) and Frank’s (“Oh God, oh God, we’re ALL GONNA DIE!” splurgharchsplat!) are polar opposites.

The Haunted Mansion ride, which (Disney Secret Alert) wasn’t even inside the Park, would pose a number of problems for your average maintenance dude.

Once inside the Mansion, an industrial lift motor took guests down about three floors to little ghostly carriages, which then trundled off about a mile outside the Park, where the main part of the ride was - the haunted ball room and the jive hoping Graveyard.

It was tough keeping that lot in line.

Luckily there was nothing average about Frank Iero. The system was pretty good. Frank knew because he made it good.

He was going to make it that much better though.

Unfortunately there was only one way to do that and it was Frank’s least favorite job: wriggling into the crawl space between the motor and the wall and prising the back plate off the lift motor to get at the moving parts.

Small spaces, underground, full of filth were just a combination guaranteed to give Frank emotional hives. There could be fucking spiders in there.

By the time he got over to the Mansion, it was pretty late and the guests had already been chivvied out. The crickets were chirping and Frank could smell that Queen of the Night just opening up again. He wondered where Gerard was.

He looked across the garden for a peek of Gerard but there was no one but Asshat Alex having a smoke - Frank was so telling Bob, first chance he got - on the veranda. Frank scowled, unlocked the service hatch under the front porch and crawled in.

The webs were pretty thick when he found the nest. Big, fat, brown spider monsters.

Later, he overheard Asshat Alex braying to anyone who’d listen that Frank sounded exactly like Drew Barrymore in Scream when he was hysterical.

But that wasn’t the worst part.

The worst part wasn’t even that his manic anti-spider flail got his arm wedged so firmly in the lift mechanism he had to radio Bob to send someone to get him out.

No, the worst part was that Bob sent Gerard.

“I am gonna kill that blond son of the bitch when I... Hi, Gerard.”

Frank watched as Gerard wriggled and wiggled and shimmied his way down the service corridor - which was pretty narrow in places - towards him. A couple of feet out he held a torch under his chin and grinned. “Man, this is more like it!” he crowed tearing through a huge curtain of thick, clingy spider’s web. “Haunted Mansion, basement extension!”

Frank yanked at his arm. He had to get out of there. He _had_ to.

Gerard wriggled closer. “Hey! Hey stop... stop, you’ll hurt yourself.”

“No I fucking won’t,” Frank growled. I just need to...” He yanked hard and felt something, his elbow, zing with pain. “Ow...”

“See? Just here...let me...”

Gerard pressed up close and reached his arm in alongside Frank’s. Frank could feel Gerard’s fingers sliding along his skin, searching for where Frank was snagged.

A minute passed with Frank staring at Gerard’s throat, his ear... the tiny patch of hair he’d missed with the scarlet dye.

Gerard slowly pulled his hand out.

“Okay, the good news is, you’re not bleeding.” He held up his hand to show Frank. “The bad news is, I can’t figure out where you’re stuck, so...” He shrugged.

“So what? I have to fucking live here now?” Frank railed.

“No, jeez...” Gerard grinned. “So... we wait for Patrick. That was the plan. Bob said, ‘Go keep him from hyperventilating to death’, and that he’d send Patrick in as soon as he finds him.”

Gerard gave Frank an apologetic smile and leaned against the mechanism in front of him. “I should probably mention that Patrick’s in LA...”

“What the fucking fuck?”

Frank was going to fucking kill... EVERYBODY. Everyone. GOD.

He took a deep breath. Okay... okay... it wasn’t so bad. Patrick was an hour away. Right... okay... Possibly he was at the studios in Glendale. So an hour and a half.

“Frankie? You alright?” Gerard asked.

“‘Mfine.”

“Really? ‘Cause you look a little panicked.”

Frank took a deep breath. “I’m okay.”

Gerard was chewing his thumbnail and did not look convinced.

“Trust me,” said Frank.

Gerard stared at him for a long moment. “At least,” he started and stopped.

Frank raised his eyebrows. “At least I’m not stuck somewhere really fucking high up?”

Gerard smiled and took a deep breath. “I was gonna say, that at least you’re not alone. But whatever gets you through. Right?” Gerard looked at his nail and started biting it again.

“Yeah,” said Frank letting out a rush of breath.

After a few moments of uneasy silence, Gerard said, “So... this is _really_ where the magic happens, huh?” He cast the torch up and down the service corridor and back into the lift mechanism.

“What?” Frank growled and tried a surreptitious yank on his arm again.

“I mean... this is the reality, behind the dream. It’s...um...” Gerard flicked his fingers trying to shake a scrap of cobweb off. It clung fast. He cringed at Frank. “I mean, all the stucco? The buildings? Just facades to hide all this, this machinery.”

“Come here,” Frank beckoned him closer with his free hand, and plucked the web away and wiped it on his ruined safari shorts.

“Thanks,” Gerard said. He didn’t step back.

Frank said, “What did you come down here in your costume for?” Gesturing to Gerard's shirt, which was smeared grim and a little grease from the mechanism. “It’ll get ruined.”

“Oh, you know,” Gerard replied, shrugging. “I thought you’d be... ” He shrugged again. “I wouldn’t want to be down here on my own.”

“I’m down here all the time,” said Frank.

“Oh...”

“Well, I mean... not all the time...Just like...”

“So you really would know then,” said Gerard frowning, looking back into the dark corridor.

Frank yanked his arm again while Gerard wasn’t looking. “Know what?”

“That there aren’t any tunnels or... you know, hidden places in the Park...” Gerard lifted the torch under his chin.

Frank blinked. “You know what?” he said, twisting towards Gerard as much as his arm would let him. “When you said about the tunnel... you know...”

“On my first day? You remember me saying that?” Gerard asked. Perhaps because it was so dark in there, his eyes looked fucking huge.

“Yeah, and I’d never heard that one before... about the mine shaft or whatever,” Frank hurried on. “I mean, everyone knows the one about the Imagineers’ Graveyard, right? But not the mine shaft... I mean, is there, like... what’s the story?”

“Oh!” Gerard perked up. He turned towards Frank and settled against the mechanism, lifting the torch under his chin again, like he was about to tell a ghost story at camp.

“Well, legend has it that when the first Imagineers were laying out the park they had a lot of crazy ideas about an underground system of links between all the lands. The first one they started on was the tunnel, a fake disused mine tunnel from Tom Sawyer’s cabin to Royal Street, so kids could experience what it was like for the Spanish Smugglers who founded New Orleans, you know?”

Frank, bemused, shook his head. Nope, he had no clue, but he gestured for Gerard to continue anyway.

“Well, apparently while they were building it, there was a tremor, you know?”

Frank nodded.

“And so, the tunnel collapsed, crushing the head Imagineer to death. Right there... under the lagoon.”

Frank blinked. To death? How had he never heard about this? “Go on,” he said.

“So anyway, this guy’s best friend was there with him. His assistant? You know. They always work in pairs. And he said he wouldn’t leave until they dug the Imagineer out. He said he’d just, like... rot down there or something. So you know. His _friend_ ,” said Gerard making air quotes, and Frank let out a small laugh. Gerard continued. “He stayed down there for a couple of days. Until the crushed guy’s sister came down and begged him to leave. So he did. Then the guy’s family, the crushed guy’s? They said he’d loved the Park so much, they thought he should stay there. So they finished the tunnel, buried him in it and blocked it off. The lagoon would be his memorial for all time...”

“No way,” breathed Frank.

“Way,” nodded Gerard. “And old Uncle Walt, not wanting to ruin the Park opening, and not wanting to delay the work, agreed. So that’s why the Pirate Ship goes slow past Tom Sawyer’s Island, out of respect for the dead guy buried under the lagoon...sleeping his eternal sleep in the Happiest Place on Earth... And they say... some people say, that if you look at the prow of the Pirate Ship as it goes past the cabin... you can see a spectral figure, leaning out, looking into the waters below, searching for his _friend_.”

Frank realized as Gerard finished his tale, that he’d leaned right into Gerard’s space. They were a matter of inches apart. Gerard blinked. Frank could practically count every one of his ridiculously long eyelashes.

Frank really liked Gerard’s eyes.

“So yeah, that’s just one of the stories I heard,” Gerard said, pushing away. “Like, you would know, right? If that was true?”

Frank shook his head. “If there’s some sort of gay ghost on the Pirate Ship? Yeah, I saw him the other night. We conversed.” Frank looked up, pretending to talk to an imaginary ghost. “Dude, have you heard the news that you’re dead?”

Gerard’s mouth twisted a little, like he didn’t know if Frank was mocking him or not. Frank suddenly felt really shitty and rubbed his free hand over his head.

“So I guess that’s just... another one of those... Disney urban legends, huh?” Gerard started chewing his nail again. He shrugged. “It’s still a cool story.”

Frank felt like shit for putting that look on Gerard’s face. “Yeah, it’s creepy, too,” he said. “I guess it’s kind of like the Park though, right?”

Gerard looked up, tilting his head to the side.

“Yeah, like...” Frank shrugged and swallowed. “Like it doesn’t matter if it’s real or not. It is what it is. You know? People... like, other people, enjoy it.”

Frank looked away and started tugging on his arm again. God... ‘It doesn’t matter if it’s real or not...’ He sounded like a total idiot.

“Yeah... yeah, that’s...” Gerard rested his hand on Frank’s arm, and Frank stopped tugging immediately. Gerard smiled. “This place is magical because we want it to be,” Gerard said, and started rubbing Frank’s arm where it was wedged against the metal. “You get that. That’s... yeah...” He slipped his arm inside the machine again and continued rubbing Frank’s arm.

“Um... what are you...?”

Gerard looked down at Frank, pressed up close to him, so close, when he spoke Frank could feel Gerard’s breath on his forehead.

“Your arm must be sore by now. Don’t want it to cut off circulation, you know?”

“Um... no, I mean,” Frank swallowed and then winced as Gerard pressed harder.

Moments passed with just the dry rasp of Gerard hand moving on Frank. Frank pressed his eyes closed, biting his tongue every time Gerard touched a particularly tender spot.

Cupping Frank’s sore elbow, Gerard said, “Tell me how you got to Disneyland, like, how did you get the job?”

Gerard reached further in and stroked his fingers over Frank’s aching wrist. It felt much better already.

“How I started?” asked Frank looking up. “I don’t know, I just applied I guess,” said Frank, staring at Gerard’s shoulder.

“And then went through the three week interview round? The psych evaluations? The profiling? The FBI interview?” Gerard said, incredulous.

“Yeah, you know... just the usual...” Frank shrugged and felt his face heating up.

“Uh huh,” Gerard said and raised an eyebrow. “It’s not exactly Walmart, Frank. You have to... want it to get through that process.”

Frank shrugged and closed his eyes again. “Ok, so... when I was... when I was a kid I always fucking wanted to come to Disneyland. Like... I was into it.”

“Yeah?” said Gerard. His fingers closed on Frank’s and he started massaging feeling back into them.

“So, my dad set it up for my 7th birthday. Just seemed like it’d be cool. Like maybe mom and dad would enjoy it too, you know? Like it’d be a distraction from the fighting... they, um... they fought, a lot. Anyway,” Frank coughed and Gerard squeezed his fingers.

“I remember thinking, they sure don’t call it the happiest place on earth for nothing, right? And, I figured, if there was one family in Jersey that needed some happy it was mine.” Frank took a deep breath.

“Anyway, I didn’t spend every day thinking about it or anything, but...”

“You knew what rides you were gonna go on first,” said Gerard. “Where they were, how long you might have to wait, which rides to get to early and which ones were better left until later?”

Frank looked up, and frowned.

Gerard laughed. “I was a poor kid on the wrong side of the country too,” he said.

“Yeah, well, kids talked and Jerry Greenstreet next door had a cousin who knew a kid that once went on a vacation to California and he knew what was what. The kid had a collection of pins,” Frank added.

“So which ride did you go on first?” Gerard asked. “Let me guess. It was Small World, right?”

Frank chuffed out a laugh. “Ah, no. No... I never... I didn’t get to come here till I got the job.”

The way Gerard’s eyes got big again, and the way his lip looked, pulled into his mouth, made Frank regret telling him immediately. But he couldn’t stop now.

“My, ah, my folks split that summer, before my birthday and yeah...” Frank gave Gerard a one-shouldered shrug.

It was no biggy that he never got to go when he was a kid, Frank thought. His folks split and he totally forgot about Mickey and Donald and all that crap.

He spent his 7th birthday sleeping on the fold out bed at uncle Sal’s place while his folks sold their house on Cherry Tree.

Sal had cable and since it was Frank’s birthday they put the Disney channel on. It was Halloween at Disneyland. A giant articulated Pumpkin-headed man thing paraded up Main Street USA surrounded by dancing hobgoblins and skeletons showering guests with candy.

Looked kinda stupid anyway, he’d thought.

“Oh...oh Frankie, that sucks. I’m sorry, man,” Gerard said and squeezed his hand again. “But you’re here now, right? That’s all that matters.”

Frank looked up at Gerard. “Is it?”

He didn’t know where the thought came from, but as he stood there, looking up into Gerard’s concerned, gentle face, thinking about his folks, and how he felt about the Park when he was just a kid, two words popped into his head unbidden - Two tiny little words he’d never thought before, not about anyone. Not ever.

 _Kiss me,_ Frank thought. _Kiss me._

“Okay you guys, what have we got here?” The sound of Patrick’s gruff, purposeful voice bouncing round the tiny space so suddenly almost gave Frank a fucking heart attack. Gerard practically leapt out of his skin and wrenched his arm free of the tiny cavity next to Frank’s, torch arcing around the confined space.

“Patrick!” Gerard bellowed. “Hey! Wow. Am I glad to see you! We, are we glad to see you! Yeah!”

Frank winced. O, fucking kay. Okay. I get it, he thought. Crisis averted.

Patrick stood, hands on hips, looking the two of them up and down. “Right,” he said with a smirk. He started peering and prodding round the housing trapping Frank’s arm.

“Okay Frank, I’ll have you out of here in a jiffy,” said Patrick. “You can shoot, Gee. We’ll be out in a minute or two.”

“Oh, okay,” said Gerard, and glanced at Frank. “Um...”

Frank couldn’t look at him. He focused on Patrick who’d started unbolting the housing and dismantling the motor. His cheeks still burned a little from the embarrassment of Gerard seeing how much he’d wanted to come here as a child, and how much that had made him want to...

Gerard turned and started squeezing his way back up the service corridor without saying goodbye. Frank thought that was for the best.

 

*

 

It took half an hour to completely free Frank, and then another half hour to put the whole machine back together again once Frank’s hand started working. Between the two of them, Frank and Patrick managed to fix a little problem in the crank gears while they were at it.

It was good to focus on the work, Frank found. Easy too, since Patrick, in a stellar display of his most admirable qualities, didn’t say a fucking think to Frank about Gerard.

So Frank absolutely was not expecting to see Gerard, sitting on the veranda of the Haunted Mansion when they finally crawled to freedom.

Gerard jumped up when he saw Frank and came rushing over.

Before Frank could do or say anything he was smothered in Gerard, wrapped in an all-encompassing hug.

“Oh wow. You’re okay!”

“Mumph...”

Patrick chuckled. “Okay, so. I’ll see you guys tomorrow, 9am sharp! Have a magical... whatever...” said Patrick, and Frank couldn’t see him but he could hear the smirk in his voice.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” Gerard said in his ear, ignoring Patrick.

Frank managed to push free of Gerard’s arms but Patrick was already trundling away in his Rocketeer cart. Fuck. What would he have said anyway? ‘It’s not what it looks like!’?

Frank straightened his shirt and stepped back from Gerard.

“‘Course I’m okay. Jeez, it was just... you know... a thing...” Frank gestured back at the Mansion. The glittering windows and gaping front door made it look like a laughing face.

“Oh, oh... well that’s good,” said Gerard, stepping back himself. “That’s good that you’re not... you know... that nothing in there affected you. At all.”

“No,” said Frank, scrubbing at a spodge of grease on his safari shorts. “No,” He shook the hand that had been crushed. “I’m good.”

Gerard nodded. “Well, good night then, I guess.”

Frank said good night and took off up the path to the back parking lot. He didn’t stop to see which way Gerard went.

Later that night, forearm pressed to the shower wall, knees shaking as he came hard into his hand, Frank remembered the way Gerard had been pressed against him in the dark, hot space beneath the Mansion.

_“This place is magical, Frank, because we want it to be.”_

Frank felt the words, the cold wet of the shower stall, and sick to his stomach.

 

*

 

  
_"Tomorrow will be better for as long as America keeps alive the ideals of freedom and a better life."  
-Walt Disney_   


 

“Frank, you need to get a life, man.”

They were sitting in a diner by Boysen Park. Frank was pretending to eat fries; Bob was pretending to give a shit. “You can’t be pining over some guy you can’t even bring yourself to talk to sensibly.”

“Can too,” muttered Frank and smushed a fry into paste against the bottom of the basket.

Bob leaned across the table and moved the basket out of Frank’s reach. “Can. Not,” he said and gave Frank the patented Robert Bryar ‘Don’t Fuck Me Off’ look.

Frank sighed. He hadn’t told anyone about the weird... thing... under the Mansion. But he knew his Gerard-related behavior had reached all new levels of dorkyness.

“But I neeeed to,” Frank whined trying to grab the basket back. A tug of war ensued until Bob rapped Frank over the knuckles with an eggy fork.

“You neeeeed,” Bob mock whined back, “to strap a pair on and ask the guy out, or you know, say ‘Hi!’ at least. You act like a spazz whenever he’s around.”

“I do not act like a spazz. How do I act like a spazz? I don’t even know what a spazz is,” said Frank, getting his indignant on.

“Well,” said Bob undaunted. “There was the time you were supposed to be fixing the water line for the steam train, remember?”

Frank winced. Oh. Yeah. Frank remembered all right.

“My definition of spazzy would be that, when you hosed that Elks tour group down with two week old stagnant water because Gerard waved at you from across the square,” said Bob, wiping his hands on a napkin.

Frank winced harder. “One, I slipped,” he said, interrupting what was sure to be a cavalcade of Frank’s finest moments in the park to date. “Two, it was like, two day old water, three tops. And three, how the fuck do you even know about that? You were nowhere near Main Street when that happened.”

Bob blinked. “Spazzy would also include,” he continued. “You hanging around helping Gerard with the Elks for three hours and paying peek-a-boo with one of their kids the whole time. Cute, sure. But dude. Spazzy.”

Frank made a dismissive noise and a rude gesture.

“The Tink’s rubbing off on you man,” said Bob said with a smile. “That’s not a _bad_ thing.”  
“Fuck the fuck off,” Frank said. But he remembered playing peek-a-boo with that kid and tried not to smile.

Bob shrugged. “I’ll get the bill, you figure out what happened to your balls.”

“Fuck off,” said Frank, genuinely that time because he’d remembered what the topic was before they got onto the Elks and their cute kids. Gerard.

‘Fuck off, fuck off, fuck off,’ was fast becoming the Frank Iero mantra.

Thing was, Frank knew the exact moment thinking Gerard was cute in an annoyingly good-looking kind of way turned into _something else_.

Because Frank _liked_ listening to Gerard wax lyrical about the potential a really great roller-coaster ride has to make you day complete.

He liked the way Gerard could make a disaster - like the Elks - into something pretty amazing. BOO, surprise! Have a magical day!

And he liked the way Gerard, mid-rant about the saving grace of Goofy, would turn to Frank and say: “You understand me, don’t you Frankie?”

Except when that happened, all Frank could actually understand was the huge, limpet pools of Gerard’s eyes fixed on him, the insane pounding of his heart in his chest, the lightening flash of ‘HE CALLED ME FRANKIE!’ racing through his head.

KA-BLAM! It felt like that, like he was stuck in an animation cell explosion.

But then Dewees, his so-called buddy, would jump in. “Are you fucking kidding me, Gee? If Mickey fuckin’ Mouse was real, this mother fucker,” he’d say, pointing to Frank, “would be laying rat bait and traps from one end of the Park to the other.”

Or Patrick would say, “You know Frank once seriously campaigned to have people between the ages of 7 and 18 banned from the Park, right?”

Or Brendon would tell the story of the time Frank did something crummy to someone who didn’t deserve it and make him look... like an asshole.

And then the canteen table full of people would erupt with laughter at Frank Iero: The Anti-Tink. Everyone laughing at the way Frank was. Everyone except Gerard, who would frown and bite his lip and look at Frankie like he didn’t get it. He didn’t get the joke.

Bob and Frank walked back to the Park, with Frank dragging his feet the whole way.

Later that day Frank saw Gerard making a Minnie Mouse candy apple for a worried-looking little girl waiting at the Lost Grown-Ups kiosk on Royal Street. When he was done, Gerard handed it to her with a flourish and a weird half curtsy thing, which made the girl giggle uncontrollably.

Then Gerard had caught Frank staring at him as the little girl toddled off with her eventually-found mom. He’d waved and grinned that stupid grin, the one that shows all his teeth.

And Frank had realized that, while he usually didn’t know if he wanted to kiss him or punch Gerard in the face when he caught Frank off guard like that, in that moment he was 100 per cent sure.

Frank waved right back.

But Bob was still wrong. There was no way Gerard would date Frank.

Gerard wasn’t Prince Charming. And Frank sure as shit wasn’t Cinderella.

 

*

 

  
_“One thing it takes to accomplish something is courage."  
-Walt Disney_   


 

For the first time in years Frank really didn’t feel like going to poker night.

But the thought of going home to his flat and pining over Gerard was too obnoxious to bear, so at 10pm, he packed up his workshop and made his way across the park to the jetty, clambered aboard the Pirate Ship and made for the hold.

The first person he saw when he jumped down from the third to last rung was Gerard, clutching a hand of cards, looking up from the table with huge, startled eyes.

“Um, hi!” said Frank, sketching a wave. He pulled a chair out from the table and sat down. Next to Gerard. “Hey, Gee.”

“Hi Frankie,” Gerard said, and shuffled a little closer to him, smiling.

Gerard’s wasn’t the only new face at the table, there was some skinny guy across from him Frank’d never seen before. Looked like he was pretty cozy with Alicia.

Frank turned to Gerard. “So, I didn’t know you... you know...”

“Oh, I invited Gerard and Mikey, our two employees of the month,” Pete chimed. Frank nodded and couldn’t stop himself from grinning at Gerard. Gerard grinned back.

Gerard said, “Oh, Frank! I wanted you to...”

“Okay, okay!” hollered Alicia, cutting him off and hauling the cards back in. “Enough chit chat. Who’s in?”

Frank chucked a roll of quarters on the table. “Me,” he said.

 

*

 

Maybe they were showing off for the new guys? Maybe they just wanted to win and win bad, but somehow, the playing got nasty. Frank kept going all in and was losing desperately. The bottle caps were flying, the insults were hurtling.

Gerard was a terrible player and kept bouncing in his seat every time he got a good hand, and not understanding why people kept folding every time he did.

Then suddenly, out of the blue, Frank had his hands on a trio of dames. He bet hard and the flop turned up yet another lady. Frank bit back a giggle and reached into his pocket for something to bet.

He came up empty. He was sure he’d had a bottle opener or mini-screwdriver in there to throw on the pile. The guys loved those mini-screwdrivers. They were so cute.

“I’ve got something you could put in,” said Bob, helpfully. He’d folded a couple of bets ago and he’d been Frank’s cheer section ever since.

Frank looked up and Bob was holding Frank’s lucky Zippo - confiscated again that day after Frank was nabbed smoking under the Jedi Academy shade awning in Tomorrowland.

“No fucking way, that’s my lucky Zippo. No. Give.” He held his hand out to Bob, who tossed it to him.

“Okay, well... you think your hand is so good?” asked Dewees.

Frank squinted at Dewees. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“I would... so why don’t we up the stakes,” said Dewees, leaning over the table.

“Oh great,” said Alicia, “Just how I wanted my evening to go... a pissing contest between tweedle dumb and tweedle dinky.”

“Um, we could go for a walk if you...” said the skinny guy, who’d played like a rube all night.

“Yes, please,” Alicia chimed and leaped out of her seat, the skinny guy’s hand in hers. “Let’s go.”

The two of them disappeared up the rope ladder and let the hatch clang shut behind them.

Dewees said, “Why don’t we bet my Saturday night?”

A chorus of ‘What?!’s and ‘No way!’s went up around the table and Pete said, “This is supposed to be a fun night guys, come on.”

“What’s... what’s up with Dewees’ Saturday night?” asked Gerard.

Frank, still staring Dewees down said, “Party night.”

From the corner of his eye he could see Gerard frown and look around. He shook his head.

“There’s a high school party on at the Park on Saturday night,” said Bob. “They’re usually pretty messy, as you can imagine. Everyone has to work them eventually, everyone tries to get out of it.”

“That sounds so cool though!” chimed Gerard. “Cool that the kids want to come here still. Teenagers can be so...” he waved his hand around. “You know? They scare the living shizz out of me sometimes. But mostly I frikken love ‘em.” He laughed.

Frank saw everyone staring at Gerard like he was insane.

“Um,” piped Patrick, “Um the kids don’t come for the Park, really... they come for the DJs and the... um, they come for each other... ah... I mean... you know, to meet up and stuff.”

Patrick looked around the table. “Right?”

Dewees laughed. “Yeah, they come to ‘meet up’,” he leered.

Gerard blinked. “Oh,” he said. “Well... I guess it’s still cool they come _here_ though? Right? Better than a club, or... so, some place less...” He looked around, as though he expected the clapboard and fiberglass insides of the ship to tell him.

Pete coughed. Frank pressed his eyes closed. The other guys didn’t get it. They didn’t get Gerard. He wasn’t a prude... or old fashioned... he was...

“Okay, I’ll take your mother fucking bet, Dewees,” snarled Frank. “I’m gonna enjoy thinking of you cleaning teen spew off Royal Street on Saturday night.”

Frank deliberately did not look at Gerard, he didn’t want to see him figure out what Frank meant.

Dewees nodded and Frank laid down his hand.

Four kings. Frank grinned and leaned forward to claim his pile of peanuts, bic lighters and bus tokens.

“Woah there, Nelly,” said Dewees, placing a hand on top of the pile. “You don’t want to know what I got?”

Frank shrugged and sat back.

Dewees put down a 10 of diamonds, a six and an eight. Frank frowned. “Yeah... um...have fun on Saturday, Jimmy,” he laughed and leaned forward again.

“Oh, I will,” Dewees said, putting a seven and a nine of diamonds on top of them.

The table erupted. “Oh shit!” hollered Pete. “Al is gonna be so pissed she missed this!”

Frank could not believe he walked right into that one. He sank forward and put his face down on the table. Son of a bitch.

 

*

 

“Well, look at it this way, you still got your lucky Zippo back, right?”

Frank looked up from the deck to see Gerard’s head poking through the hatch. After losing so spectacularly, Frank felt in desperate need of a smoke. He’d waited for the next hand to get going before sneaking out to spark up.

“Yeah, I guess,” he said and dug his packet out to offer one to Gerard. Gerard took a cig and cupped his hands around Frank’s as Frank lit it for him. Gerard’s hands felt warm and dry against Frank’s. Their eyes met above the flame.

“You really don’t want to work the Saturday?” Gerard asked after taking a drag.

Frank sighed. “The kids don’t respect... they’ll wreck the joint.”

Gerard frowned and nodded. “That sucks, but it’s cool that you care...”

“I don’t care,” snapped Frank. But he backpedaled pretty fast when he saw Gerard’s frown deepen. “It’s that I’ll have to fix it.”

Gerard smiled, glancing at Frank from the corner of his eye. “I see you, you know. You think I don’t... that people don’t notice all the work you do. But I see you. You really care about this place,” Gerard said, and tugged Frank’s sleeve.

Frank shook his head.

“Yes, you do,” Gerard said, tugging again, and moving to stand in front of Frank. You care enough to crawl into dingy holes, and... and scrub out pond-scummy submarines.”

Frank rolled his eyes; he couldn’t help it. “Well, it’s not like they don’t pay me, Gerard.”

“You called me Gee in there. I liked it,” said Gerard. “You should, you know, keep doing it.” Frank felt his face flush. Gerard continued. “And, I know that. But still... You change a lot of light bulbs and grease a lot of gears for that pay check, Frankie,” Gerard said. His hand slipped up Frank’s arm and Frank tried hard not to shiver when Gerard squeezed his shoulder. “Got to be some love in that?”

“Not enough to give up my Saturday night.”

Frank saw it was Gerard’s turn to roll his eyes then. “Okay, I’ll help you then,” Gerard said, swinging away from Frank on some rigging and leaping up onto a barrel marked RUM. “I’ll work it with you.”

“What?” Frank stared.

“It might be fun,” shrugged Gerard. “If we work it together.” He held out his arms wide and turned to look out across the Lagoon to New Orleans. “Might be.”

Frank clambered up on a barrel with a big skull and cross bones on it next to him.

“Might be,” he said and nudged Gerard with his shoulder. Laughter erupted from the hatch; it sounded like the hand had ended entertainingly.

Gerard turned to him. “Hey, you want to take a walk to the island?”

Gerard was already clambering down onto the jetty and heading for the cabin before Frank could say, “Sure.”

Frank caught up to him as he was making his way up the jungle path to the look out. “Hey, um...” he called out to Gerard.

Gerard stopped and turned to Frank as he spoke, holding out his hand to help pull him up the last big step. Frank landed on the little rocky outcropping in front of Gerard.

“Um, hey,” he said again, and winced internally.

“Hey,” said Gerard back, smiling slow and sweet.

“I, um... I wanted to apologize for taking off the other day after, the thing,” stammered Frank. He could feel his face heating up even as he said it.

Gerard raised an eyebrow. “The Mansion?”

“Yeah,” Frank said. He shook himself a little. “I just - It hurt, you know, when I was let down as a kid. And I kind of just. It was easier to stop believing?” He made a gesture with his hands. “But now, I just. I want to believe that _believing_ , or whatever, will pay off somehow.”

Gerard was very still. “That it won’t always end with Uncle Sal’s couch instead of the Halloween Parade,” he supplied.

Frank rubbed his hand around the back of his neck. “Yeah, that’s... that’s it exactly.” He took a deep breath. “And the Park. I want to believe. In the Park,” Frank said. He waited for Gerard to start laughing at him, even though he knew this was the one person who wouldn’t, wouldn’t ever.

“I know you do, Frankie. I don’t... I don’t really listen to you when you try to make out you don’t care, you know.”

Frank rolled his eyes. “Okay, okay... so, I’m a dork and maybe I get it now, but it’s probably too late for me here anyway. Pete thinks...” Frank shrugs.

“He thinks you’re too cynical,” said Gerard quietly.

Frank nodded.

“I get being cynical, but look...” Gerard took Frank’s hand and led him higher into the jungle of the island. “It’s like this place. You can create your own story here. You can be Huck Finn if you want. Change history, change your story. You just have to...” he waved his hand, reached out and pushed back the branches of the tree and there, laid out below them was the whole park, night lights glittering along the paths, the windows of the Mansion glowing. Gerard turned to Frank, his face so close.

“Look. I’m not gonna lie. Sometimes? It’ll be Uncle Sal’s couch, and sometimes,” Gerard gestured to the view of the Park. “It will be magic. You just have to believe, Frankie,” he said.

Frank turned and stumbled on their little ledge. Gerard caught him quickly by the elbows and pulled him close. Frank felt Gerard’s chest pressed to his, his arms cupping his shoulders. Gerard leaned in, and Frank tipped his head back, letting his eyes slip shut...

“I’m locking the gates in 2 minutes and everyone who’s left in the Park can spend the night.” Bob’s voice crackled over Frank’s walkie-talkie, still strapped to his waist with his tool belt.

“Shit,” sighed Gerard, pressing his forehead to Frank’s. “I really fucking want to kiss you,” he said, his voice low and rough.

Frank looked up, his heart pounding, and then said “Shit!” a second later when he remembered that Bob was in no way joking and that he’d once locked Dewees in overnight twice in a row.

They clambered down the hill and across to the jetty in time to see Dewees and Bob leaving.

Bob gave them one of his looks, but Frank was too fuzzy headed to figure out which one it was.

Frank and Gerard trailed out behind Bob and James until they got to the castle.

“You lot, that way,” said Bob pointing towards the gates at the exit. “I’m going to fetch Ray and help him lock up.”

“Who’s Ray?” Gerard said, frowning at Frank. “What’s he locking up?”

“Um...” Frank said.

“No one,” Bob said, just as Dewees said, “Nothing.”

Gerard looked confused and was about to say something when Bob lifted his mighty paw and pointed at the gates in the distance.

“That. Way.” Bob said again, before striding of into the night.

A few minutes later all the lights in the park went out and Dewees took off at a run towards the Park gates leaving Gerard and Frank standing in the middle of the dark Park.

Almost like magic, the fireflies lit up and started dancing around them under moss-draped weeping willows and Magnolia trees on Main Street.

“Wow, he can sure move fast,” Gerard said. Frank couldn’t help noticing Gerard wasn’t watching Dewees move at all. He was watching Frank.

“He sure...” but Frank didn’t finish the thought, because Gerard was kissing him, chaste and sweet. Frank pressed closer to him and felt Gerard’s arms closing around him. He clutched at Gerard’s shirt, twisting his fingers in the bunched up fabric at his waist and God, Gerard’s lips felt so soft, and tasted so sweet.

Gerard pulled back a little bit. “Frankie,” he whispered into Frank’s mouth as their lips parted. He giggled when Frank tried to follow the kiss, wanting more. “The gates.”

He took Frank’s hand and started walking with him towards the exit. Frank kept sneaking glances at Gerard’s face as they walked, Gerard sometimes catching him and holding his gaze.

For the life of him, Frank could not fathom what had happened. Gerard had kissed him. Had seen him, seen inside. Frank’s heart, he felt, wasn’t beating out of time for once. He felt for the first time in years, that his heart was beating in perfect time, with the pace of their walk, the chirp of the crickets and the gentle, zing, zing zing of the fireflies darting about above them.

 

*

 

  
_“Disneyland will never be completed. It will continue to grow as long as there is imagination left in the world.”  
\- Walt Disney_   


 

Frank skipped into the workshop. Okay, so it was less a skip than a stagger, but it wasn’t his usual only-moving-by-sheer-force-of-will Monday morning drudge walk either.

No, Frank felt, well... he felt fucking great. Gerard had kissed him, had believed in him. Had given him a little intimate smile and wave as he leaned out of Patrick’s beat up pumpkin orange Honda Civic peeling out of the parking lot, blaring Saves the Day from the stereo.

 _My life is made of awesome,_ Frank thought, still feeling amazing.

That was until he got the first call of the day. It was Ray, freaking out.

“Dude,” Frank’s walkie-talkie crackled moments after he turned it on. “Dude, it’s the kitchens. Something serious is going down.”

Frank put his cup back on the counter and strapped on his tool belt. It was time to go to work.

 

*

 

Besides being Bob’s main squeeze, Ray was also the manager of Disney’s ultra secret high rollers’ club, 33, above the bustle of Royal Street.

Okay, so the place wasn’t all that secret; still, Mr. and Mrs. Nylon Walk Shorts and their kids, Wal and Mart, would have no chance of getting in there, even if they had seen the doco on it on HBO. You couldn’t find it on the map, even if you tried.

Frank never complained about club 33. Ray let him tinker with the antique espresso machine, and once in a while Frank was allowed to come terrorize the prissy 33 staff with barista training. Also, it was the cleanest place in the park.

Usually, anyway.

Frank shuffled after Ray through the controlled chaos of the club’s kitchens to the back wall and a pair of gleaming aluminum fridges.

“Stick your head behind here,” said Ray gesturing to the dark space behind the fridge.

Frank leaned forward and a gust of hot air, redolent with au de sewage, smacked Frank in the face.

“Yeah, so that’s new,” Ray shrugged.

“Dude. That is rank,” winced Frank, pulling back. “Who the fuck puts a sewage pipe by a kitchen?”

“I know, right?” wailed Ray. “I guess it was here when they built the Club and they just didn’t bother to move it.”

Frank started yanking the fridge further forward.

“Good old LA. There was an earthquake last night. You feel it?” asked Frank, getting in between the wall and the appliance and pushing back to move the thing some more.

“Really? No, what time was it?”

“Yeah, dude, a 5.1. I don’t know, around midnight maybe? You seriously didn’t feel it? My fucking dogs were going nuts.”

He glanced at Ray when he didn’t answer. Ray grinned and looked away.

“What?”

“Well, Bob. Bob stayed over last night so, like...we were kind of, ah, busy around that time...”

“Jesus fuck.”

Frank slumped against the wall as Ray started actually giggling. “Just...get on the other end of this fucking thing will you? There’s... it looks like there’s a hole in the wall or something.”

Ray, still giggling, dragged the fridge out enough for Frank to lie down and get a good look at the hole.

“Yeah, plaster and brick’s all crumbled.” He passed a big piece of red clay out to Ray as he continued prodding the wall. “The quake probably shook a couple of pipes loose too; maybe cracked them.”

He prodded the brickwork some more, and only just managed to get out of the way as half of it crashed down into a massive hole on the other side of the wall.

“What the fucking fuck!” Ray grabbed him and pulled him back. “Dude, what the hell did you do?”

The smell was now worse.

Frank pushed a bunch of rubble out of the way and stuck his head into the hole.

It was pitch dark in there. Light arced out into nothingness. There didn’t seem to be anything under the hole; whatever was in there was a really long way down. Frank was not expecting that at all.

“It’s a really long way down,” he said pulling himself out of the hole sharply and pressing back against the wall. That wasn’t right. They were already in the basement, there shouldn’t be more basement or what the fuck ever under them.

Ray raised his eyebrows and leaned into the hole.

“Holy shit! It totally is!” he crowed leaning back out and grinning at Frank. “Weird. How far down do you think it goes? Looks like...”

“Seven, eight floors. Maybe more,” groaned Frank.

How the hell did he not know about this? He thought of Gerard suddenly, stupidly. The kid was gonna shit when heard about this.

“I think it goes down to the underground mechanical stuff for the Mansion,” Frank said, trying to rationalize the drop.

The Mansion tunnel did cut under Royal Street. Surely, surely this was something to do with it? It was the biggest ride in the Park, after all. The Mansion itself was just in the next block.

Frank ducked his head back in and out again quickly to check on the drop. “Yep. Pretty sure.”

“Dude, are you okay?” asked Ray as he leaned into the hole again.

“Yep.”

“You’re kind of green.”

“Smells,” mumbled Frank, trying to surreptitiously mop up the sweat beading on his upper lip.

He didn’t say ‘pitch dark…long drops…unholy terror’ but he was most certainly thinking it. Frank, who really did some of the worst jobs in the worst places at the Park, really only had one problem.

Ray chewed his lip. “Frank,” he said, laying a hand on Frank’s arm. “I know how you feel about heights, but, dude,” He sniffed and gagged a little. “You’re gonna have to go… like, down there.”

One problem only.

Frank nodded.

Ray nodded back.

Heights.

 _Fuck my mother fucking life_ , Frank thought.

 

*

 

An hour later and Frank was strapped into a window cleaning harness and swung into the abyss.  
He lurched out into the darkness and thunked pretty quickly against the slimy inner wall of hole.

His hands-free earpiece crackled.

“You okay?” A burst of feedback screamed in his ear.

“Dude, I’m right here,” he said quietly to Ray, standing just outside the hole next to him.

Ray had the grace to look sheepish as he switched off the walkie-talkie.

Frank shook his head. “Just...don’t forget to turn the fucking thing back on when I’m out of sight.

“Got it,” said Ray with a salute. “Keep your elbows and feet in the ride at all times.”

Ray pressed the button and Frank began to descend.

It wasn’t until the light from the kitchens was a dim square above him that Frank began to think perhaps he wasn’t getting paid enough to do this kind of shit.

Frank hollered back up to the light to tell Ray to stop lowering, and his walkie-talkie earpiece crackled back to life.

He took a deep breath while pinching his nose. It stank like ten things died down there, and he could see why. The soil pipes were cracked at a junction a couple of feet down.

They looked like they were forty years old at least. It was as if no one had been down there since the park was built. Considering Frank’d had no clue this place even existed, then probably no one had.

Crackle. “So, I hear this Tink you’re after looks like a taller, macho, Christina Ricci. True or false?”

Frank sputtered and accidentally breathed through his nose as the winch started up again.

“STOP!” he bellowed.

“Oops, sorry! I leaned on the button,” muttered Ray. “C’mon, tell me. You know I never get to meet the new people.”

“Mother fucker.”

“Now, now,” crackled Ray with absolutely zero concern in his voice.

The winch stopped and Frank swung wildly around the narrow space for a minute before bracing his knee against one wall and his back against the other damper, slimier one.

The pipes were right in front of his face, cracked and oozing God only knew what.

He scrabbled for the walkie-talkie clipped to his belt. “Firstly, about seven thousand and three people started this summer, so I got no clue who you’re talking about.” Besides, Gerard’s forehead wasn’t near as big as Christina Ricci’s. Frank pushed himself away from the oozing pipes, looking for the sump valve. He couldn’t tell if his stomach flipping was due to talking about Gerard, or the smell coming from the pipes.

“Secondly, I am hanging 60 feet up on what amounts to a couple of bits of dental floss. And lastly _I am hanging 60 feet up by frikken dental floss, I’m kind of busy right now_.” The high-tension wires connecting him to the relative safety of the basement floor beams made a gut-churningly loud pinging noise. Frank swallowed.

“Well, okay,” huffed Ray. “It’s just that Bob said he seemed like your type is all.”

“Really?”

If Frank hadn’t been hanging from dental floss above certain doom, he would have punched himself in the face.

Ray laughed. “Yeah, he said you’ve always had a weird thing for Tinks.”

Frank took a deep breath through his mouth, counted to ten and plucked the earpiece out. He switched off the walkie-talkie and set to work turning off the valve.

Without much warning half of the wall surrounding the pipes crumbled as he touched them. The light from his flashlight shot across the opening and washed out into the darkness. “Holy shit,” muttered Frank.

The space was massive.

He scrabbled to get his earpiece back in and switch the walkie-talkie back on. “It’s like mother fucking Goonies down here or some shit,” he hollered.

“Frank?” crackled Ray. “What’s going on?”

A gust of warm air billowed into his face, followed a few seconds later by another gust, then another. Like something huge and silent, breathing in the darkness. A click echoed deep bellow the opening, the faint whisper of metal grinding on metal.

Ice clenched a path up Frank’s spine. “What the fucking fuck...”

The flashlight beam glanced off something white and huge. Teeth. Massive and gleaming, below the unholy horror of an eye, yellow with blindness.

Frank lurched back again and the flashlight beam fell on something wide and smooth and glossy. A mirror in the gloom. Light suddenly filled the gaping void and Frank was staring into the gaping, fang-filled maw of...

Goofy.

It was Goofy all right, only he was twenty feet tall and dressed as some kind of pirate. A gigantic, evil, animatronic, pirate Goofy.

There were other abandoned animatronics in there with Goofy, possibly hundreds. Some were characters Frank new well: Goofy, Mickey, Donald. Others were bizarre animatronic chimeras, Minnie Mouse through a dark glass, Cinderella the insane Go Go Dancer. Many of the models looked haphazardly thrown together, patched up with number 8 wire and duct tape. Most were just parts, gruesome robot bits, like some kind of futuristic Brueghel painting.

Frank bellowed into the walkie-talkie. “It’s the Imagineers’ Graveyard!”

“You... you found a graveyard? The fuck?!” Ray’s tinny sounding voice hollered back.

Frank whooped. He didn’t know why he was so excited. But he knew Gerard was going to shit when he heard about this. Frank couldn’t wait to tell him.

“Frank? Oh my god! Oh my god! Frank!” Ray wailed. “It’s killing him! The underground thing is killing... FRANK! YOU OKAY??”

The winch started suddenly hauling Frank out of the gap in the wall. He yelled for Ray to stop and after some promises that everything was fine, Frank finished the job he went down there to do.

Half an hour later, and Frank had Ray under control, the sump valve shut off and about a gallon of shit all over him. But he didn’t really care. Okay, he cared about being covered in shit. He cared a lot.

He was pretty elated by his find though. The mythical Imagineers’ Graveyard: the resting place of all those insane, cotton candy and old fashioned coke-fuelled fantasies.

Hell, if Gerard was right about that place then... who knew what else he was right about?

 

*

 

“Frank, can you smell that?” Bob asked as he sat down in the canteen. “Man, did you fart or something?” asked Bob.

Frank was seconds from just going somewhere quiet to set himself on fire. The elation of finding... he didn’t even know what he’d found, something amazing, was already wearing off due to the fact the discovery came covered in raw sewerage.

He’d already showered and burned his uniform. This was the kind of dirty where the water never cleaned off the clothes. Now, obviously, the flesh would have to go. He was pretty sure he could never be clean again.

Frank slumped at the table of the canteen and cast a jaundiced eye at Bob. “Fuck you,” he said, but it was kind of half hearted.

Bob stared at Frank. Frank stared back with no clue what this particular version of Bob’s patented glare was all about, until Bob pushed a chair out for Gerard and asked him to join them.

Frank’s stomach plummeted. He hadn’t known Gerard was there with Patrick.

All he could smell was sewage. On himself. _Fucking gross._

“Bob,” said Bob holding out his hand in a mock introduction, “and this surly asshole is Frank.” He gave Frank a knowing look, which Frank, who stank of sewage for the love of God, ignored in favor of scowling at his lunch.

“Hi Frankie,” said Gerard, smiling shyly.

“Oh, yeah. I forgot you guys know each other pretty well, right,” Bob said, eyes twinkling.

“Yeah, well, no, see…” stammered Frank. He really did not need these guys to know he’d been smooching in the park with Gerard. He’d never hear the end of it. Besides, he kind of needed to get his head round it first.

“Frank saved my ass on my first day,” said Gerard, cutting in and grinning. “I never would have made it to orientation without him. He was totally awesome.”

“Frank who?” said Patrick pointing at Frank. “Not Frank, this Frank. Frank Iero?”

Frank scowled at Patrick who only snickered. “Seriously though, dude,” said Patrick to Gerard. “You should make a tee shirt or something. The Day Frank Iero Was Awesome. People would want to commemorate that.”

With a confused laugh, Gerard said, “I don’t get it.”

But Patrick had already turned to Frank. “What’s up, Frank? You look like you’ve been boiled or something. ”

Frank glanced sideways at Gerard, who was still frowning, but also dipping his fries in brown barbecue sauce.

“You won’t believe what I found today,” Frank said, before launching into story of his discovery in as much detail as he could muster. Every word he said seemed to make Gerard’s eyes get larger than Frank had heretofore imagined the human eye could get.

“And it was a fifty foot Goofy, right, with mother fucking fangs and shit, all propped up against the wall, like the Egyptian Jackal things in Indiana Jones, you know, only his animatronic jaw was hanging open and all these wires were hanging out, like guts and shit. It was awesome.” Frank stopped and took a slurp from his coke can. “So I...”

“Hold on...” said Bob cutting him off. “So, what you are trying to tell us is... what?” said Bob taking a bite of his burger.

“It’s the Imagineers’ Graveyard,” Gerard said quietly. “Frank found it.”

Frank looked around the table grinning and nodding. Waiting for the cheers.

It took a second, but when the table erupted into laughter it was pretty loud.

“You found the what?” asked Bob spraying half the table in his effort to both speak and laugh uproariously at the same time.

“The... Imagineers... what the fuck is so funny?”

“You are. You are, my tiny friend,” said Brendon patting Frank on the back. “That’s the best one yet, dude. But not even Gerard is gonna fall for that crock.”

“It’s not a... fucking hey, man. I’m telling you. Ask Ray.”

“Oh,” says Bob wiping a tear from his eye. “Oh, I did. I did. He said you had him swing you down some hole and you clambered around down there for a bit and came back up all excited because you were covered in shit or something. He had to disinfect the entire basement.”

“The basement of what? Why would you disinfect a basement?” asked Gerard, frowning now and not making eye contact with Frank.

“No reason,” said everyone.

That kind of killed the laughter.

“Dude, everyone knows the whole graveyard story is some bullshit they wind the new guys up with. No offense Gerard.”

“Um,” said Gerard, still not looking at Frank. “Yeah, I know... but, if Frank says...”

“Look,” countered Frank. “I know they make shit up, but it’s down there. I saw it.”

“Dude,” said Brendon. “And there was what? Like a two headed Minnie?”

“No,” said Frank, petulantly pushing his plate of fries away. “She had a horse’s body actually,” he muttered.

The table erupted again.

As Frank sat scowling, he felt Gerard’s staring at him. He raised his face and glared back at them, the fucking doubters. “I’m not fucking with you. I saw what I saw,” he said quietly. The other guys had moved on to trading descriptions of sickest fantasy animatronics mash-ups. Bob was describing one of Peter Pan’s mermaids with Cruella De’vils’ head.

Gerard leaned forward and touched Frank’s knee under the table. He nodded and half smiled. Frank thought of how Gerard’s breath had felt against his lips.

Frank looked up at him. Gerard wasn’t mocking him. Frank didn’t know how he could tell so clearly, but he wasn’t. But he didn’t believe Frank either.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s real or not, right?” Gerard said. He smiled and turned back to his fries. “The Park is what you make it. I believe you.”

“No! That’s not... this is different. You were right... this is... ” But Patrick was nudging Gerard out of the way to get Frank’s attention.

“Hey Frank, Frankie.” Patrick wheezed with laughter as he leaned across Gerard towards him. “So, did you see Amelia Earhart’s plane while you were down there?”

“Hardy har har,” said Frank, pushing away from the table, getting as much space between his potty stink and Gerard as he could.

He’d wanted to stay, wanted to tell Gerard about the disused parts, because, hey waddaya know the crazy bastard was right. There really is hidden shit under the park. But no. He stank of sewage and his friends were all total assholes and now even Gerard didn’t believe him.

“Anyway, I’m out. See you fuckers later. Um…. bye. Gerard.” Frank waved lamely, stumbled up from the table half kicking over his chair and narrowly missing knocking a Goofy’s lunch try right out of his hands.

Frank made it out of the canteen in one piece, but not before he heard Bob, Patrick, Gerard and the Goofy erupt into laughter as he was half way out the door.

Well, that went swimmingly, Frank thought as he walked out into the mid-day sun. What was the point in trying to be less cynical, if all everyone ever thought you were was a cynical, nasty little asshole anyway?

 

 

*

 

  
_“I only hope that we don't lose sight of one thing - that it was all started by a mouse.”  
-Walt Disney_   


 

Frank arrived at work on Saturday afternoon a couple of hours before the Park shut, to get set up for the night.

Checking the roster he saw Gerard’s name was now on the list, along with Asshat Alex and a couple of other guys Frank didn’t know so well. The rest of the crew was security, led by Armand. There were lots of them, which was a good thing, considering the work they had cut out for them. Sometimes kids got themselves into trouble, and it was Armand’s job to get them out.

Frank scrubbed at the back of his neck and took a deep breath. He was feeling pretty strung out and crummy.

Bob had told him, due to the sanitation issues with the pipes and the security issues with the club, that they’d had to board up his “discovery” and wouldn’t be able to get to it until Health and Safety had assessed it and they had the all clear from head office.

Bob had said it was more than likely they’d just concrete the whole thing in. Head Office, he’d told Frank, had “laughed their asses off” when he mentioned the Graveyard.

Frank had quietly fumed, but in the end, wasn’t all that surprised. Just another one of his ideas no one wanted anything to do with. “I am a Graveyard... an ideas Graveyard,” he muttered to himself and he strapped on his tool belt, checked his pockets for smokes, lighter, pocket sized teen-taser.

Although he tried not to think about it, Frank couldn’t help fretting over the whole Goofy thing, either.

Kissing Gerard had been... well... It was pretty much the highlight of Frank’s fucking year so far. But now even Gerard didn’t really believe in him, even if he was still going to show up tonight like he’d said. And besides, since then, Frank had seen Gerard mooching round the Park after Goofy, and having lunch with Goofy and goofing off with fucking Goofy.

What the hell was Gerard ‘Tinkerbell’ Way doing kissing Frank with... with fucking fire flies twinkling around them, when he’s hot for Goofy’s stupid ass?!

And where the fuck had the fire flies come from, anyway?! California doesn’t even have fireflies!

As Frank rounded the corner to the night crew’s meeting place he let his blood boil for a second and mentally planned an insecticide blitzkrieg on Main Street.

“Oh, hey, _Francis._ ” It was Asshat Alex, leaning by the service hatch of Small World, watching the rest of the team set up catering tables to be moved out into the park after closing.

“Fuck off,” snarled Frank.

Asshat Alex just laughed, but just before Frank could get up in his shit and teach the little asshole a lesson, Gerard arrived, loping onto the back-lot like a crimson haired Tim Burton character.

“Hey! You’re here!” he chimed, waving at Frank.

“Yeah, I’m fuckin’... Yeah. Hi.” Frank scowled as Asshat Alex made kissy faces at Frank from behind Gerard’s back and sloped off to annoy someone else.

“Great! So, um...” Gerard said, looking shifty. “You’re not supposed to start for a little bit and, um, neither am I. So...”

“So?” Frank said, still giving the retreating back of Asshat the evil stare.

“So, I wondered,” Gerard said, and he touched Frank’s sleeve. “If you’d like to go on...” He pointed at the emergency exit to It’s A Small World and shrugged. “Might be fun?”

Frank frowned. “There’s a lot of work to do, Gerard,” he said, gesturing to the guys lugging boxes from one side of the lot to the other.

“Oh, yeah, I know. I do. But like...” Gerard shrugged and smiled. “We have time, right?”

Frank dropped his shoulders, took a deep breath and rolled his head on his neck.

“Yeah, sure... why not,” he said, and gestured for Gerard to lead the way. His Saturday night was already a fucking wasteland, why not compound it with a psychotic break-inducing children’s ride in the company of the most unsettling man Frank knew?

They traipsed around to the front of the ride and got in the short, late evening line.

Gerard seemed like he had something to say, but kept giving it up as a bad idea.

“What?” Frank snapped after the third aborted attempt to start a conversation.

“Are you okay?” Gerard asked. He had a tiny line between his eyes. Frank was irrationally angry with it.

“I’m fine,” Frank snapped, cringing inside at the sound of his voice.

Gerard said, “You don’t sound fine.” His voice was quiet, timid even.  
Frank rolled his eyes. “I’m. Fine. Let’s just... get in the boat.”

They were the last people in the line and the only people in their little Small World boat. Frank laughed without really feeling any humor. Under any other circumstances, being alone on this ride with Gerard would have been his dream come true.

But it was just... time wasting. This ride, this job, this time with Gerard. Frank fumed. It was just Gerard killing time, until he was tapped for the Imagineer program, or was pulled out to head office to be a coordinator.

That’s why, Frank thought bitterly, Gerard made sure to be seen round the park with fucking Goofy, and not Frank. Frank and his cynical ways would only hold Gerard back.

“Goofy would love this, I’m sure,” he said, squashing into the seat beside Gerard.

“Would he?” Gerard replied, looking around at the tiny seats and low arch of the dark tunnel ahead and frowning. He shrugged. “I don’t know. He’s kind of an unknown quantity, Goofy. A sort of charming everyman. I love the guy. You know?”

“Charming. Right.” Frank felt cold all over. Disappointment rose up in his stomach like acid and made the rocking of the little boat almost unbearable.

They were wedged in the seat pretty tight together and Frank could feel Gerard all along his side. The unending chant of happy, happy, joy, joy grew louder and louder as they drifted into the diorama world. And Frank was stuck, he couldn’t stop being pulled along by the ride, it was inevitable.

Gerard lifted his arm and slipped it behind Frank across the back of his seat before pointing at one of the characters. “Fuck yeah! The kiwi! I love the kiwi!” Gerard chimed.

Frank closed his eyes and let himself imagine for one hot second that this wasn’t the worst ride he’d ever been on, that this was... something else. Then he thought about the boarded up hole in the 33 kitchen’s wall, and the way everyone had laughed at him in the canteen, how Gerard and the Goofy had laughed, too, as he walked away.

He seethed. Fucking kiwi birds, who the fuck cared about kiwi birds?

As they pulled into the jetty a few moments later, Frank was the first one out of the boat. He hurried quickly up and over the small white bridge and back onto the fairway.

Gerard caught up to him. “Are you okay?” Gerard asked again, his hand hovering over Frank’s shoulder.

Frank didn’t want to see Gerard’s earnest face; didn’t want to be lured into thinking this was something it wasn’t, like the Park: just another stupid illusion where people come to pretend the world is a better place than it really is. He stepped away from Gerard. “Let’s just get to work,” he said.

 

*

 

Back on the lot, they spent a good hour or so decorating the signage and setting up more tables to be moved into the park in time for the teen revelers.

Frank tried to avoid working with Gerard, choosing to hang out with Armand and help set up the first aid tent.

By the time the kids started arriving and the DJs were cranking a particularly obnoxious blend of dubstep, garage, and plastics beats - totally at odds with the weeping willows, and vintage styled facades of the Park - Frank had completely lost track of Gerard.

When Frank had last seen him Gerard had been helping Asshat carry the first of the trestle tables out into Toontown.

With any luck Frank wouldn’t see Gerard again until clean up at 3am.

But then Frank looked up from the wheelie bin full of cokes he was filling up to take out to Tomorrowland and saw Gerard over by the empty helium balloon canisters, waving his arms around and trying to grab something, a crate, from Asshat Alex.

‘Fuck,’ Frank thought and before he knew it he was running across the lot towards them.

“Just fucking calm down, man,” Alex was whining as Frank reached them. “What’s your god-damned damage? Jeez.”

“Um...Gee, I don’t know.” Gerard said, looking down at the box Alex was carrying and tapping his chin. “Could it be the fucking case of vodka you’re carrying? Here? In the Park? You dicksmack?”

“Gerard,” Frank said, tugging his sleeve, and getting over his shock of hearing Gerard _cursing_ . “Just... leave it.”

“Yeah Gerard, _Francis_ says drop it,” Asshat sneered. Man, that kid was fucking messing with the wrong mother fucking maintenance guy.

Frank turned on him. “Shut the fuck up,” he said, pointing a finger in his face.

Frank turned back to Gerard. “C’mon Gee. Let’s just...”

Asshat interrupted. “Yes. Come the fuck on. This is none of your business, Gerard. Right _Francis_?”

“Go eat a bag of shit and broken glass!” Gerard shouted, his eyes narrowing at Asshat Alex. “And his name is _Frank_ , fuck head.”

Frank stepped in front of Asshat and turned to face Gerard.

“I really think we should leave this be, Gee,” he said.

“But the vodka, Frank,” Gerard said, standing his ground. “No alcohol in the Park. You know that. And so does this fucker!” he shouted, pointing at Asshat.

“I know... but,” Frank tried pulling Gerard away again.

“No buts. They’re just teenagers for fucks sake,” said Gerard, appalled, his hands on his hips. “Are you selling this stuff?” Gerard whirled around on Alex. “Are you selling anything else?!”

“Jesus, shut the fuck up, Gerard,” Frank snapped.

Gerard blinked and looked at Frank. “What? You’re okay with this?”

Alex’s nasal voice chimed in, “Look, it’s totally fine, you’ll get a cut,” he said, hiding the case of bottles under a tarp behind the balloon canisters. “The kids, they slip me a little extra to bring it into the Park, man. It’s no biggie. Gotta do something to bump up the pissant pay round here.”

Gerard made a grab for the box, and one of the bottles clanked onto the concrete.

“Watch the fucking merch, man!” Alex yelled.

“Get this shit out of here or I’m calling Bob,” Gerard said. And Frank had not met this Gerard, thin lipped, and dark eyed, standing with his arms crossed in front of him. The Tink was gone. There was just a self-righteous prig in his place.

The change in Gerard sparked the rage that had been threatening to boil up in Frank all afternoon.

“You can’t...” Frank snapped. “You can’t always fucking fix everything.”

“And you think this is okay?” said Gerard, the cold calm in his voice making Frank’s lack of calm ratchet even higher. “There’s alcohol... in _Disneyland_ Frank.”

Frank clenched his fists. This, this is the last lie he was putting up with tonight.

“There’s always been alcho-fucking-hol in Disneyland, you fucking... _child_ ,” he shouted. And even Alex shrank back. Gerard dropped his arms. But Frank’s knuckles ached with squeezing his fists so tight.

“Always, for fuck’s sake. That’s what 33 is. It’s a fucking bar. Only it’s not a bar for the likes of you and me. Oh, no. It’s for rich assholes, who don’t want to muck in with the rest of fucking humanity, swilling around the... the... toxic fume-induced hallucination that is the Happiest Fuckin’ Place on Earth, T-mother fucking-M.”

“Frank, what are you...” Gerard shook his head, he reached out to Frank, but Frank stepped back.

He didn’t want to hear Gerard, didn’t want to be placated. “Jesus,” he yelled. “You’re as blind as the fucking wage zombies we call guests in this place. You walk past it every fucking day and never even see it! 33 Royal Street. Ring any bells? And Ray, the mythical Ray? He runs it... mixing their fucking maitais and vodka tonics, right there, under your Tink nose. Why shouldn’t the kids get to drink too?”

Gerard’s mouth hung open and Frank could see the hurt in his eyes. He saw it, and he wanted to hammer some more in there on top of it. He pointed to the Park.

“Those fucking kids don’t care about Mickey Mouse, _Gerard_. They don’t care about Disney.” Frank sneered. “They care about ‘M-I-C-K-E-Why am I still sober?’. They don’t give a shit about this place. They don’t care,” he railed, throwing his arms up in the air. He stopped and looked Gerard in the eye. “And neither do I,” he said.

The only sound then was the harsh rasp of Frank’s breathing, and the raucous cacophony of the party going on beyond Its A Small World.

After a second Gerard said, “But you told me...”

Frank cut him off. “I know you said this and that and I said a bunch of stuff, but that doesn’t change anything,” Frank said, wilting a little under the weight of it. “This place is still just a big, fat, lie. Only fucking _children_ would believe in any of this shit.”

Gerard reeled back like Frank’s words were an open palm across the face. “Then I was wrong about you,” he whispered. His eyes. Frank couldn’t look at his eyes. “I thought,” he said, “I thought _they_ were wrong. But I was. I’m a fucking idiot.”

Frank chanced a look into Gerard’s eyes then, and they weren’t big and round this time; no, they were as flat and hard as his voice had turned. “And you’re an asshole.”

“Yeah,” Frank said. “I am.”

“Fine,” Gerard said, sounding small and tired. He turned away and walked off the lot.

Frank swung around to grab Asshat before he could disappear into the party. Frank was gonna take that vodka and beat him to death with it. But the little asshole had already escaped.

When Frank turned back he saw why.

Bob and two of his security guys were standing behind him.

“You’re being kind of a dick. You know that, right?” Bob said, and gestured for the security guys to take a hold of Frank.

“Oh come on...”

“Sorry, Frank,” Bob said, leading them out of the lot and towards the Dark Heart. “Rules are rules, and you know how I feel about rules.”

Frank wilted and let Bob’s goons frog march him to his doom.

 

*

 

Frank had never been in Bob’s actual private office in the Dark Heart. Under any other circumstances, the picture of Ray on Bob’s desk would have made him laugh out loud, but Bob’s silent direction for him to sit in the low chair in front of Bob’s desk kind of killed any levity in the situation.

“Okay,” Bob said, sitting on the edge of his desk and crossing his arms. “You have something you want to say to me?”

Frank rolled his eyes. “You want me to tell you about the vodka? Like you didn’t already know when the dipshit bought it in the Park?”

Bob eyeballed Frank. “I did know,” Bob said, cutting him off. “That’s not what I want to hear from you right now.”

Frank shook his head. The sounds of the party, so brutal upstairs, were just a dull, distant thud down in the Dark Heart, like his own fucked up heart beat. It hadn’t bothered Frank when he was in the middle of it, but now, sitting still in the chilly, underground office, it was an irritation he really didn’t need.

“Asshat Alex brought vodka onto the fairway, I don’t know what else you want me to say,” Frank said after a second. He hadn’t known he was going to turn the guy in before then.

Everyone knew people brought booze into the park for the kids. Bob usually caught them at it and handed them a pink slip then and there.

Frank felt hollowed out and cold. He just wanted to do something right. Getting the booze off the fairway was the only thing he had.

Bob sighed. “Fuck the booze. You really think the Park is a,” Bob flipped open a notebook he had pulled from his tuxedo inner pocket - he liked to rock the James Bond feel at events like this - “A ‘big, fat, lie’?”

Frank blinked. What the fuck? “You can’t fire me for that!” Frank jumped out of his seat. “Come on!”

Bob held up his hands. “No, course I can’t fucking _fire you_ for that. But I can slap you in the ear.”

“Oh, give me a fucking break,” Frank said, throwing himself back in the chair and fiddling with his walkie-talkie. “I know you. It’s not like you believe so hard in...”

“Shut the fuck up, Frank.” Bob cut him off. “And give me that. Give me the whole fucking thing.”

Frank took off his tool belt and handed it to Bob, who put it on his desk, and then walked over to a filing cabinet against the wall. He pulled open the second drawer and pulled out a bottle and two glasses. He poured them both a drink and handed one to Frank.

Frank took a sniff.

It was honest to god, mother fucking sarsaparilla.

“When I was a kid,” Bob said, sipping the old fashioned soda and leaning back on the desk. “My dad drove me into the city to see some fucking Christmas parade bullshit.” He offered Frank another top up from the bottle. Frank shook his head.

“I didn’t give two shits, right?” Bob continued. “But we’re there. And my dad? God, he was so fucking excited. Like... I was dying with embarrassment, but my old man, was... Well. That was his kind of thing. He was really just a big kid at heart. Anyway, a bunch of Warner Brothers toons go past, and there’s fucking Captain Kangaroo, and fucking Kermit the frog and what not - when who should come strolling up Michigan Ave, but fucking Mickey Mouse himself.” Bob stopped and smiled to himself.

“Bob...”

“Shut the fuck up Iero and listen.” He snapped, and fixed Frank with one of his patented ‘no holds barred’ looks.

Frank clamped it and leaned forward to put his head in his hands.

“Cut a long story short, Mickey comes over and he hugs my dad. And... I don’t know, my dad just... he lit up. It was like... Here’s this grown man, hugging this other grown man in a fucking mouse suit. And my dad...” Bob stopped and rubbed his hand over his beard.

He took a deep breath.

“What I didn’t know then was he was sick. He’d only found out that week,” Bob said, putting the cork back in the bottle and moving to put it back in the drawer. “It was a fucking tough year for the Bryars, let me tell you. But when my old man was really down, every time it was bad, he brought that day up.” Bob shrugged and looked back at Frank. “That was his fucking... his cottage in the fucking woods, you know? Him, his kid, and Mickey Mouse.

“I came to work here,” Bob continued, “Because I wanted to be part of the place that did that for my old man. That does that all the time... for millions of people, every day.” He pointed at Frank. “So you tell me, Iero. Is that a fucking lie?”

Frank absolutely did not know what to say about this new information. Bob Bryar was the biggest Tink in the Park. And for the first time, that word didn’t seem like the embarrassing, demeaning, lame-ass thing Frank had always thought it did.

He felt like seven kinds of asshole for never having known. How could he not have heard that story before? He thought about how much Bob gave to the Park, not just in hours worked and heads knocked, but in patience, and in care. A lot of people thought it was just because he liked being the tough guy. But now Frank could see, enforcing the rules was Bob’s way of protecting this thing that had been so special to his dad.

Then he thought about Patrick, backing Pete all the way, no matter how outlandish his pronouncements were. He thought about Dewees, running the soundboard for the whole park, day in, day out, never once complaining that no one ever seemed to notice the way everything meshed together so perfectly. He even thought about the guy in the Goofy suit, sweating it out in the Cali sun to bring a smile to some stranger’s face.

And he thought about Gerard. He’d called him a fucking child, as if being child-like was some sort of...insult. God...

Maybe there really were only two kinds of people at Disneyland Park. Frank fuckhead Iero and everyone else.

He’d been a fucking asshole. He had to find Gerard.

Frank jumped up and grabbed Bob’s arm. “No,” he said. “No, Bob. The Park is not a lie.”

“That’s the right answer, Frank.”

Bob stood and went over to the door. “Now get the fuck out of here and fix what needs fixing,” he said pointedly.

“Yes!” Frank said. He rushed up to the door and yanked it open only to come face to face with Goofy.

“You have the best timing, ever,” Bob said, reaching past Frank and rubbing Goofy’s big shiny nose.

Okay, so Goofy worked hard too, but that didn’t mean Frank had to _like_ the guy that made Gerard look seven kinds of happy, right?

“I gotta...” Frank gestured over his shoulder.

“Frank,” Bob growled.

Frank looked back at the Goofy. He noticed the actor had Goofy’s head on wrong - twisted round like he was about to do an Exorcist 360.

Bob seemed to notice at the same time and tugged the Goofy’s head on straight.

“Bob, I gotta...” Frank said again. “I gotta go, man. I have to find Gerard and tell him I’m an asshole.”

“Morf Mrank?!” Goofy said.

Frank ignored him.

“I think Gerard already knows you’re an asshole,” Bob said, also ignoring Goofy. “I think you have to tell him you’re not one. But before you do that, I want to introduce you to someone. Someone who is very special to Gerard.”

Frank blanched. So, it really was Gerard’s Goofy. Fuck.

“Okay,” Frank said. “But what if I don’t want to?”

The Goofy started laughing.

Bob squinted. “Frank...”

“What if I _don’t want to meet him_?” Frank bit back.

Bob rolled his eyes.

“Mumphmef mallmout yuff,” said the Goofy. Bob reached up without taking his eyes off Frank and tugged the Goofy’s head clean off. “Thanks Bob,” said the Goofy.

It was the skinny guy from the game the other night. Mikey, employee of the month mark two... and Alicia’s new squeeze. Apparently one Park romance wasn’t enough for this guy; he had to take Frank’s, too.

Mikey turned back to Frank. “I said Gee talks about you fucking non-stop.”

Mikey was about seven and half feet tall. But Frank still wanted to take the stupid silk daisy in the stupid little hat, on the stupid big Goofy head and stuff it up Mikey’s nose.

Bob rolled his eyes and Mikey raised his eyebrows at Frank.

“He said you were fierce,” the Mikey said. “Guess so huh?”

“Oh, Frank’s not fierce really,” Bob said. “He’s just ...funny with new people.” Bob flicked Frank’s ear, but Frank was too busy staring at Mikey out to knock his hand away.

“Frank,” Bob said as if he was talking to an infant. “This is _Gerard’s brother Mikey_. M, I - K,E,Y… just one letter away from awesome.”

“S’up,” Mikey said, giving Frank a tiny wave.

Frank staggered back a little bit. “His brother? But then...” Frank spun round to look at Bob. Bob nodded.

Frank launched himself at Mikey, threw his arms around his neck and hugged him.

“Fucking hello!” He said. “Oh my God... this is... really fucking good news; you have no idea!”

“Um...” Mikey replied in a less-than-Goofy voice. “Okay, this is so not how Gee described you. Um...Why...?” Mikey patted Frank on the shoulder awkwardly, and when he leaned back Frank saw him making a worried faces at Bob.

“Because!” Frank said, squeezing Mikey’s arms. “I think I’m in love with your brother!”

Frank bundled past Mikey and dashed off, leaving the sound of Bob laughing his ass off behind him as he ran down the corridor.

 

 

 

*

 

For the record, Disneyland at night, teeming with over-excited teenagers, was a fucking nightmare. The noise, the taffeta, the gaggles of bleary-eyes boys in hired tuxes. It all just made it impossible to find anyone. Especially, Frank thought, if the person you were looking for didn’t want to be found.

Frank ran from one end of the park to the other asking every Disney staff member he could find if they’d seen Gerard.

But it seemed like Gerard was always one step ahead of Frank. Bill had seen him by catering in Tomorrowland. Then Bert had seen him holding a girl’s hair back while she spewed and her friends called her a cab - guess Asshat Alex wasn’t the only one supplying tonight.

Finally, after one more false lead, Jepha pointed Frank at Royal Street, the ‘chill out’ area, saying he’d sent Gerard there to find Bob.

At the entrance of Royal Street - mostly empty now with the party starting to wind down - Frank thought he saw Ray leaving 33. But that couldn’t be right. Ray would have gone home hours ago. They never opened 33 during the Night Parties, what would be the point?

“Ray?” Frank called, which seemed to scare the shit out of who ever that was - he jumped a foot in the air. But before Frank could get a good look at him the guy took off, running down Royal Street towards the Mansion.

Frank jogged to the corner to see if he could catch the guy. The street was empty, frizzy haired Not-Ray was nowhere to be seen, and neither was Gerard.

Then Frank turned, hearing... something... someone calling? The door to number 33 Royal Street was standing wide open. His blood turned to ice.

“Ray?” He called again, this time sticking his head inside the door of the club. He could hear people in there, and the sound of something else he couldn’t quite make out. _Fucking teenagers._

“Who’s in here?” Frank yelled. “You guys better not be pissing around. This place is off-limits during the party!”

Frank walked into the lobby to see about kicking some high school ass and to check that the lift up to the dining room was still locked. It was.

An excited holler arose from the corridor to the kitchen. “Help! Hey! Help us! We’re down here!”

The door to the basement kitchen was standing wide open. From the dark stairs he could hear more than one voice calling for help, and the sound he couldn’t quite make out before - rushing water.

“Oh, fuck me,” Frank breathed. He sprinted down the stairs and through the kitchens to the back wall where he could see the double fridge pushed to the side. Next to them was a gaping hole in the wall - much, much bigger than he’d left it - where the ply wood cover should have been.

“Fucking help! Don’t leave us here you asshole! Help!” A girl’s voice from _inside the fucking hole._

Frank flung himself across the last of the space and onto his belly. He inched up to the edge of the ruined wall and peered over.

His stomach dropped. Fuck. It.

Five or six pairs of very scared, very young eyes stared back up at him.

“What the everloving fuck?!” Frank yelled.

“Oh, thank God... thank God,” one of the kids, the girl Frank had heard before, said. “Please...please get me out of here!” She started reaching up to him. Frank reached down to try and grab her hand but it was too far, their finger tips kept sliding past each other. There was no way he could get a grip on her.

Frank tried to see where all the water was coming from. It smelled pretty rank, but it wasn’t sewage. It smelled like... balls... fishy, sweaty, balls.

It was the pipes running to and from Nemo’s pond.

“This fucking guy told us there was some kind of fucking... fucking... secret club under here,” one of the other kids said. “He said he c-could...could get us liquor, but when that didn’t happen, he said he knew a cool place we could go. Made us give him.... give him $50 each...brought us here... Then the fucking wall caved in...and... he took off...”

“Yeah, okay,” said Frank. Fucking Asshat Alex. That’s who he’d seen legging it up the street when he’d arrived. Fuck. That fuckhole would never set foot in this Park again if Frank could help it. He could sell churros at Knott’s Berry Farm with all the other Disney hiring pool rejects. “Okay. Just... hang on. I am not leaving you. I’m getting help,” Frank said and pushed himself back from the edge.

“No,” the kids screamed in unison.

“Fuck no!” One of the boys yelled. “Dude... there’s like... a ton of water coming in here. This ledge... it’s fucking... it’s _going_ , man...”

Frank leaned further into the hole. One of the pipes was broken and pouring water pretty much on their backs from across the cavity.

He leaned out a little further. Frank could see the edge of the slim ledge the kids are standing on crumbling away.

Hanging down into the black next to him was a rope, but it had broken just out of the kid’s reach. Frank looked back and saw it was tied round the old, brass coffee machine.

Frank thought about the window-cleaning winch locked up in his workshop all the way on the other side of the park. He looked at where the water was pouring in... it was as if the pipes came down a separate tunnel... And then he remembered Gerard’s story about the Imagineer killed in the mine shaft. This had to be it. The abandoned mine shaft that led to Tom Sawyer’s Island.

Holy fuck. Was there anything Gerard Way _wasn’t_ right about?

“Just don’t touch anything,” Frank called. “There’s a way out down there. I’m gonna get a... a... rope, and come get you out.”

Frank couldn’t think fast enough. There were a few planks left next to the ones Asshat had ripped down to get at the hole. There wasn’t any rope though.

 _Come on fucking THINK, Iero...you’re a goddamned engineer, not a... a... popstar,_ Fuck. He could hear one of the guys crying, and so was the first girl he’d heard calling out to him.

Then there was a huge whooosh of water and all of the kids screamed.

He ripped open the supply cupboard and starting tossing everything out. At the back was the floor polisher... with about thirteen feet of power cable. Frank hauled it out of the cupboard and dragged it to the far side of the coffee machine bolted to the counter. Wrapping the polisher end of the cord round the base of the machine, he threw the rest into the hole.

Frank scanned the room frantically for another cord, but one of the kids screamed. He dropped everything and skidded up to the edge of the hole.

“What, what!” he yelled into the dark below.

“You gotta fucking hurry!” The girl cried. “Please...”

 _Fucking fucking fuck._ Frank sprang back from the hole and took a deep breath.

Okay, he thought... o fucking kay.

“Can you try and climb up?” he asked her.

She started trying, but her hands were soaking wet and the cord was slippery and plastic.

One of her friends started sobbing hysterically then.

“Calm the fuck down... come on. Just...”

Frank looked at the longish lengths of wood in a pile next to the hole in the wall. He looked back into the hole, judging the distance between their flooded, crumbling landing, and the stable entrance to the mine shaft across the gulf. If the planks were long enough, he could build a bridge and they could get out at Tom Sawyer’s Island.

Using the cord, he lowered a few planks down to the kids. He’d never done this before, but he’d seen an episode about acrobats on the Wonderful World of Disney when he was nine. He had an idea of what to do next.

“Grab them, untie them and hold the fuck on to them,” he yelled, and when they’d done so, he wrapped himself in the cord and lowered himself gingerly over the lip of the hole.

He longed, unhelpfully, for his tool belt and walkie-talkie lying on Bob’s desk back in the Dark Heart, and cursed himself. All he had in his pocket was his wallet and his supposedly lucky Zippo.

The cord slipped around Frank’s hips and he let out a yelp. He looked down. Almost there. He landed on the tiny, crumbly ledge and one of the girls threw herself at him.

“Holy shit, man!” she hollered.

“Okay,” Frank yelled, hugging her back. “You’re gonna be okay. Trust me.”

The girl, almost out of her wits, nodded.

“Okay, see that tunnel over there?” Frank pointed across the huge gulf, behind the curtain of freezing, stinking water. “You’re gonna get out that way. Okay?”

“No, no, no... please... no...” One of the girls lost it and started trying to scramble up the cord. Frank heard an ominous grinding noise from above.

“Whoa! Whoa.... stop, for fuck’s sake!” Frank said, as one of her friends grabbed her. “Look. I’m an engineer, okay? I can get you out of here, but you gotta... You gotta calm the fuck down, okay? What’s your name?” He asked the terrified girl.

“Vicky,” she sobbed. “Vicky T.”

“Okay Vicky T. I’m Frank, and I’m gonna lay these across there,” he took one of the planks and slid it out across the void. “And then you’re gonna... no... no. It’ll be okay...” Frank took her hand and squeezed when she started to get upset again. The other five kids were clinging to each other.

The water pouring in on them was freezing, and the edge of the little ledge felt completely sodden and unstable. Frank wondered how long they’d been here, and how the fuck Alex could have left them. He gingerly dropped the second plank down next to the first.

There was at least a four floor drop beneath the kids down into the Imagineers’ Graveyard. If they went down, they weren’t coming back up again.

“Okay, Vicky T? Come here,” Frank said, pulling the cord out and wrapping it around her. “Here’s what you’re going to do. You’re not going to look down. You’re going to let the cord out a little as you go, and you’re going to edge right across this bridge, into the mine shaft over there. Then throw the rope back to me and I’ll send one of the others.”

Vicky T had stopped crying. She took a deep breath, looked at Frank and nodded. He nodded back. Holy fuck... this had to work. “It’s... It’s so dark Frank,” she said, biting her lip.

Frank dug into his pocket and pulled out his lucky Zippo. He pressed it into Vicky T’s open palm.

“This is my lucky Zippo, so don’t fucking lose it. You can use it if you need light over there. But I want it back. Okay?”

She nodded. Frank squeezed her arm and led her up to the makeshift bridge.

Step by step she shuffled across. Frank didn’t breathe for one second until she finally leaped into the tunnel with a whoop.

“YEAH!” Frank hollered. The kids were cheering too. “Okay,” Frank turned. “Who’s next?”

It felt like hours, but it took only about ten minutes for him to get all the kids across until there was only one left. Frank looked up at him.

“Don’t tell me,” Frank said. “You’re the offensive tackle of this little team?”

The kid was big. He nodded. “That’s why I waited ‘till last,” he said grinning.

“Name?”

The kid took the cord. “Gabe.”

“Okay, well... you’re up, Gabe. Let’s go.”

Frank fixed the cord tightly around him and Gabe stepped out onto the planks. They made a fairly upsetting cracking noise. But Gabe just kept going, with his friends in the tunnel urging him on.

“Don’t look down... just...”

“Not looking down, homes. Just... practicing my dance floor ass wiggle here,” the kid said, shuffling a couple more steps forward.

But two feet out from the edge, a huge, fresh torrent of water flooded in from a new pipe break above.

Gabe panicked and jumped. His momentum made the planks bounce. One slipped off the ledge at Frank’s end and tumbled down into the hole. The other one teetered on the edge, but before Frank could grab it, it too fell, leaving Frank stuck on the other side.

“Holy fuck...”

“Gabe!” Vicky T screamed. “Frank!”

“It’s, it’s okay...” Frank took a deep breath. It was gonna be okay. Gabe would just have to chuck the cord back to Frank and he’d... fuck... he’d... swing across... Indiana fucking Jones-style and everyone would get the fuck out of there.

Gabe untied the cord, but as he threw it back to Frank, he heard the tension on the cord give above them. It sailed out into the void and plummeted away.

“No!” Vicky T screamed.

Frank was still, pressed up to the wall behind him. Holy shit. The ledge had crumbled away so much in the second deluge the ends of Frank’s chucks were hanging over the lip.

“Vicky, listen to me!” he yelled. “You guys have to run... really run. And get someone back here for me. Okay? You need to find the guy in charge out there,” Frank said, trying to sound calm, even if his heart was hammering through his chest. “You need a big guy called Bob, okay?”

“Frank!” Vicky T was sobbing.

“Just get Bob; tell him I’m in the basement of 33, and it will all be okay.” Another flood of water washed down the hole. “Okay? GO!”

The kids took off up the tunnel and Frank was left there. All he could hope was that Gerard had been right about that mine shaft leading to Tom Sawyer’s Island, and that the tunnel was clear enough for them to get through.

 

*

 

Frank was really, truly fucked.

Below him he could hear the grinding and cracking of one more level dropping away under the weight of the water flooding in.

He pressed back against the wall, then reached out for the shred of rope hanging down from the kids getting to the landing in the first place, but it was still just out of reach.

Fuck. Was this it? He was going to... fall... and that would be the end of Frank Iero.

Frank was surprised to find he felt kind of okay about that. He saved those kids. He fell in love. He realized his inner demons were really just an inner Tinkerbell trying to get out.

He dug his fingers into the sodden wall and squeezed his eyes shut. The only really fucking sad thing was that he’d never get to tell Gerard how sorry he was.

“Frank!”

And now he was even imagining Gerard’s voice.

“Frankie! Oh fucking... GOD, FRANKIE!”

Wow, his imagination under stress was kind of loud and slightly hysterical sounding.

Frank looked up. Hanging over the edge of the hole in the wall was...

Gerard.

“Oh god... Oh God, Frankie... Are you... Can you hear me?” Gerard was reaching out for Frank, his long arm barely coming past the end of the frayed rope.

“Gee?” Frank pushed away from a wall a little, but had to throw himself back. The ledge was too narrow. “Gee!”

“I’m here, Frankie. I’m here.”

“Gee... I can’t... do you have the winch? How did you...?”

“The kids,” Gerard says. “They got out. I was... I was taking a break on the island, and they came bursting out of that door. The one that’s always locked? Strong-ass mother fuckers.”

Gerard was talking, but all Frank could think of what how glad he was that he could tell Gerard he’d been a dick.

“Gee... I’m so fucking sorry... I’m...”

“It’s okay, Frankie. It’s okay. You can... you can apologize after we get the fuck out of here.”

“Ok... did you get the winch?”

Gerard was silent.

“Gee?”

“Bob’s bringing it.”

Frank’s stomach clenched. “He’s coming Frankie,” Gerard insisted. “Just... Hold on.”

Frank looked up and Gerard was still leaning down into the hole. Still reaching towards Frank.

“You should... get back into the kitchen... that... wall might come down.”

But Gerard didn’t move back. He shook his head. “I’m staying right here.”

Frank swallowed a sob.

“Sweetheart,” Gerard called and pushed a little further over the edge towards him. “Just...You are going to be okay. Just...”

Only there was now a fuck ton of water pouring into the shaft. The ledge was really unstable.

“Please get back, Gee,” Frank called as the sound of rumbling and tearing and crashing in below shook the walls.

“No, Frankie. No.”

“Gee, the whole fucking... wall... is gonna come down. Please.”

“I’m not leaving, Frank, so shut the fuck up about it.”

Frank heard the crackle of a walkie-talkie, the one at Gerard’s hip, and the sound of Bob’s voice through it. “Will you both shut the fuck up. Everyone is going home tonight. Every frikken one. You guys will be giving each other back rubs and kissing it all better before the night is through. Now calm the fuck down and focus. I’m on my way.”

Gerard’s laughter came out like a sob. “See, you’re gonna be okay, or Bob’s gonna be in a bad mood for like, ever.”

Frank laughed too. “I’ll be okay as long as the last pipe from the pond doesn’t...”

There was a tremendous crack and rumble from deep underground.

“What the fuck was that?” Gerard yelled, grabbing the wall beside him as he almost toppled forward.

Frank swallowed. “The last pipe from the pond.”

Okay, Frank thought. It was okay. It wasn’t so bad, to die in the service of the Happiest Place on Earth. He’d gotten to see Gerard at least.

But then Frank looked up and saw Gerard is hanging half out of the hole. And he could see Mikey behind him, sitting on his legs, weighing him down.

“You saved those kids, Frank,” Gerard yelled, and reached for Frank again. Frank grabbed his fingers and Gerard tried to drop a little lower. They hung in there like that for a few moments. Frank could feel he was losing feeling in his fingertips - a result of the constant cold water pouring on him. He couldn’t keep his fingers hooked in Gerard’s for much longer.

“How does water get so fucking cold in California,” he mumbled, his teeth chattering. “What the fuck is up with that?”

“Focus on me, Frankie,” said Gerard, his voice desperate, demanding. “Just focus.”

Frank looked back up at Gerard. He was so beautiful. Frank loved him.

“I love you,” he said.

“What? Frankie, look at me. You’re slurring your words. What?”

“I love you,” Frank yelled, trying to shake back the bone-tired feeling washing over him. “Wanted to tell you...before...”

Gerard smiled, but the smile fell from his face suddenly. “Frankie...Oh God... Oh God... hold on...” The ledge cracked and dropped an inch.

“Gee...”

“Ok... stay... stay with me... I knew, I knew that if you could believe again, then you could do anything, Frank,” yelled Gerard, and Frank could feel his fingers slipping, just the tips, now, clinging to Gerard’s. Gerard scrabbled for him. Behind Gerard, Frank could hear Mikey shouting.

“I know you’re a believer,” Gerard yelled. “Knew it the very first day I saw you hiding behind that angry little face of yours. And if there’s one thing the Magic Kingdom taught me, Frank, it’s that anything can come true if you really want it to. If you believe. You fucking believe, don’t you Frankie?” Sweat sparkled on Gerard’s upper lip. His eyes were fierce.

“Yes, I do,” said Frank and he fucking meant it with every fiber of his exhausted being. “I really, really do, Gee.”

“Then take my fucking hand.”

Gee reached down and Frank reached up. Frank could just about, just about touch the palm of Gerard’s hand. He closed his eyes. ‘I wish…’

Suddenly, he felt Gee’s grip tight around his wrist, the air whooshing around him as he was hauled towards the light. Gerard sprawled on top of him as they spilled onto the solid floor of the kitchen. Frank could hear Bob, tinny through Gerard’s walkie-talkie, ‘whooping’ in the background. And then Gerard’s voice was in his ear, sobbing and laughing, and he felt Gerard’s warm, solid arms around him.

And Frank knew he was saved.

 

*

  
_"Somehow I can't believe there are any heights that can't be scaled by a man who knows the secret of making dreams come true."  
-Walt Disney_   


 

Frank sank down into the frothy bubbles of his bath and felt the chill leech out of his bones.

Explaining everything to Bob and Pete in the Dark Heart after the rescue had been a blur. Mostly, Frank had just felt cold, and kept asking Pete if they’d gotten the water turned off yet.

Gerard, who hadn’t left Frank’s side or let go of his hand, asked Bob for some blankets, and then wrapped them around Frank’s shoulders, massaging the life back into him, just like he’d done that day when Frank had been caught in the Mansion.

“Come home with me?” Frank had asked

And Gerard had nodded.

Once at Frank’s place, Gerard had run a hot bath while Frank sat on the toilet lid. Then he’d let Gerard peel off Frank’s sodden shoes, his stinky socks, his ruined jeans.

Suddenly, in the daze, Frank had remembered.

“Goofy’s your brother!” He’d giggled.

Gerard had massaged some life back into Frank’s knees. “You found the Imagineers’ Graveyard!”

They’d grinned at each other.

“Mikey thinks we’re both brain damaged,” they’d said, almost in unison, remembering how hard he’d been rolling his eyes at them from the passenger seat as Patrick drove them home in his pumpkin orange Honda.

Frank giggled remembering it again now in the bath, and got bubbles up his nose for his trouble.

When he was done wallowing in foam, Frank pulled on his PJs and shuffled into the living room to find Gerard curled up on the sofa asleep. Frank stood above him, marveling at his beautiful face, the way his eyelashes, so long, fluttered on his cheek, the faint blush on the bridge of his nose.

He crouched down next to the couch. “Gee?” he murmured and brushed Gerard’s hair back from his forehead. “Gee. Come and sleep in my bed with me,” he said when Gerard’s eyes fluttered open.

Gerard rubbed his nose and smiled at Frank. “I’m sorry. I was just resting my eyes.”

“I know. Come rest them in my bed,” said Frank and he took Gerard’s hand and lead him into the bedroom.

Frank turned on the fairy lights, pushed back the muslin drapes around the bed and pulled back the sheets. Gerard, feet already bare, shucked his jeans and tee shirt and climbed in. Frank followed and they curled up together in Frank’s huge canopied bed.

Frank snuggled down into Gerard’s arms, ear pressed to his warm, soft chest, listening to the steady thump of his heart. He smiled.

Just as they were dropping off, Gerard said, “Um... Frankie?”

“Mmm?” Frank replied, almost half-asleep already.

“If you never believed,” Gerard whispered, “how come this bed looks like something out of fairy tale?”

“Shhhh,” Frank whispered back. He ran his palm over Gerard’s side and buried his face in the crook of Gerard’s neck.

They snuggled down together and slept.

 

*

 

  
_“I would rather entertain and hope that people learned something than educate people and hope they were entertained.”  
\- Walt Disney_   


 

Frank can’t be late; he’s getting a gold star from his Imagineer today.

The only problem is that currently his Imagineer is giving him something else - namely the best head Frank’s ever experienced in his entire life.

Gerard swallows, his eyelashes flutter and he moans as he goes down again. Frank stuffs practically his whole fist in his mouth to stop from screaming the house down.

Frank wants to take it so, so slow, but Bob will be beyond pissed if Disneyland’s number one Imagineer and his assistant are late to their own employee of the month announcement. Again.

When Pete was promoted to Disney Central after developing the Disney Museum of the Bizarre with the help of Frank, Gerard and the Imagineers’ Graveyard, he’d had two conditions: one, Patrick would be going with him and two, the only people to be considered for their jobs would be Gerard and Frank. Pete knew a winning combination when he saw it.

Frank’s hips are twitching uncontrollably, and Gerard hums, cheeks hollowed as he sucks long and hard.

He slides his hands beneath Franks hips, pulling him in, letting him slide deeper into the sweet, wet warmth of his mouth. Gerard’s humming turns to delighted moaning as Frank lets go and comes.

They’ve been running New Orleans Land ever since. And, yeah, they really ware a winning combination, thinks Frank stretching and rolling round to return the compliment.

It’s a big day. And Frank wants them both to be relaxed, happy and ready.

That’s because Frank Iero, Disneyland Imagineer’s assistant, loves his job.

He loves putting on his uniform. It’s all primary colors and racing stripes now, instead of Pete’s candy-striped mayhem.

He loves that he gets to spend his day with Gerard planning new and ever more awesome ways to send people home feeling better than when they arrived.

But most of all Frank loves his Imagineer. Usually first thing in the morning. Sometimes twice. Tinkerbells have the most… wicked imaginations, don’t you know.

So what’s not to love about working at Disneyland?

After all, thinks Frank as he swallows Gerard down, there are only two kinds of people at Disneyland Park, Anaheim, CA…

The people Frank loves, and the people he hasn’t met yet.

 

 

__

The End


End file.
